Assam police on Thursday arrested Opposition AIUDF MLA Aminul Islam over his “misleading and instigating statement” targeting the Centre over Tuesday’s terror attack.

Hours after his arrest, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that Islam had been arrested “on charges of sedition” while warning everybody who is in Assam that "any attempt to defend Pakistan directly or indirectly will be taken head on.”

Sarma also announced financial assistance of ₹5 lakh for the families of each victim of the Pahalgam terror attack as a “token of solidarity.”

Islam, the three-term MLA from Dhing constituency in Nagaon district was picked up from his home and was brought to Guwahati.

He has been booked under sections 152, 196, 197(1), 113(3), 352 and 353 of the BNS.

Sections 152, 196 and 197 deal with acts endangering the sovereignty of India, promoting enmity between different groups and with assertions prejudicial to national integration, respectively.

What landed Islam in trouble is the purported speech he gave on Wednesday while campaigning for next month’s panchayat polls. In his speech, he targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah for the 2019 Pulwama attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed.

“We also suspect that the central government is behind all these incidents in Kashmir so that they can fan anger against the Muslim community and do their politics. That is why we seek an independent inquiry (into the Pahalgam terror attack),” Islam had purportedly said in a video that has gone viral since.

“After the Pulwama massacre, I had sought an independent inquiry, but nothing was done in the past six years. We don’t know how the vehicle entered Pulwama, a high-security zone... We now want an independent probe in Pahalgam. If they don’t order the probe, we will be compelled to believe both Narendra Modi and Amit Shah were behind the two attacks.”

The Dhing MLA also said the BJP is campaigning across the country that the terrorists had shot the victims after asking their names, sparing the Muslims and only gunning down Hindus. “Those affected have said they (terrorists) did not ask for names (of the victims). They fired, taking the benefit of darkness,” Islam claimed.

The attack took place in the afternoon. Survivors have claimed the attackers had asked about their religion before firing at them.

This is the second time Islam has been arrested, the first time on April 7, 2020, also on charges of sedition for allegedly making provocative, communal and misleading remarks on the Covid situation in the state.

Chief minister Sarma said he had reviewed the video of Islam and had “seen that the video has been posted in a manner to defend Pakistan and its complicity in the terror attack”. Sarma said that Islam said “certain things which have angered the people of Assam” and that Sarma had instructed the police to take “strong action against the MLA”.

“We will take the case to its logical conclusion,” Sarma said in Guwahati.