Facebook suspends account of scholar Tajamul Islam

Hyderabad: After Twitter, Facebook has decided to play the role of government censor and has begun shutting down accounts of those who are disclosing information about what is happening in Kashmir, which is under a lockdown and communication blackout imposed by the central government.

Facebook has disabled the account of Tajamul Islam, a PhD scholar who had around 5,000 friends on his FB account. He has been critical of the government’s move on Kashmir since the state’s special status was abolished.

In a recent post, Tajamul said: “Kashmir has already lost thousands of crores due to the deadly curfew imposed by India and there are people around who say it is all about the development of Kashmir.”

On Monday, he found his account was disabled. He created another account and wrote: “Dear friends, unfortunately my previous Facebook account with 5000 friends plus followers was disabled by Facebook. No reasons whatsoever were cited. I had well-meaning friends from everywhere. I have lost them all. My FB messenger is also gone. Years of memories I had preserved on facebook and historic endless conversations with friends have all gone. I tried my best to retrieve my lost account but to no avail. I was probably perceived as a threat to the nation”.

Tajamul flew to Hyderabad from Srinagar a day after Article 370 was revoked and thousands of troops were deployed in the Valley.  He was scheduled to give his final PhD examination at the Urdu University here. Since then he has been cut off from all communication with his family.

On Bakrid, Tajamul left to go back to J&K, determined to meet his parents. His post before the account was disabled read, “I am going home today. Not certain whether I will make it to my home by the evening or not. This is the last message I am conveying to you, I will soon be sucked by the black hole called Kashmir. Id Mubarak to all of you. Life must go on.”

Earlier, Twitter had suspended the handle @withkashmir_ that was getting attention.