The Uttar Pradesh Police have booked a satirist and a Bhojpuri singer on sedition charges for allegedly making objectionable remarks on social media about the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22, The Indian Express reported.

The first information report against Madri Kakoti, known as Dr Medusa on social media, was filed at the Hasanganj police station based on a complaint by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad leader Jatin Shukla.

Kakoti is an assistant professor in the linguistics department at Lucknow University.

In his complaint, Shukla accused Kakoti of targeting India’s unity, integrity, and sovereignty through posts on her handle on X.

He alleged that Kakoti frequently used terms such as “saffron terrorists” on her platforms and added that some of her posts had reportedly been shared by Pakistani media channels, according to the newspaper.

Amar Singh, station house officer of Hasanganj police station, told The Indian Express that Kakoti had been booked on sedition and other charges.

This came a day after Bhojpuri singer Neha Singh Rathore was booked for a video on social media in which she said that the terrorist attack was an intelligence and security failure on the part of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government, India Today reported.

Rathore claimed in the video that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would now seek votes in Bihar in the name of the attack in Pahalgam just as he did after the 2019 Pulawama terror attack, which killed 40 Central Reserve Police Force personnel.

The FIR was registered against her based on a complaint by a person named Abhay Pratap Singh at the Hazratganj police station in Lucknow, PTI reported.

Rathore was booked after a handle on X, run by a Pakistani journalists’ group, reposted her video, India Today reported.

As per the FIR, Rathore’s posts on X adversely affected national integrity while inciting the public to commit crimes against each other on the basis of religion and caste.

It added that her “anti-national” statements were widely being shared in Pakistan. “All these anti-national statements of Neha Singh Rathore are being used against India in the Pakistani media,” India Today quoted the FIR as saying.

Rathore was booked for sedition under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and under the Information Technology Act.

The terror attack at Baisaran near the town of Pahalgam on April 22 left 26 persons dead and 17 injured. The terrorists targeted tourists after asking their names to ascertain their religion, the police said. All but three of those killed were Hindu.

In Assam too, the police have arrested at least 11 persons for making remarks that the authorities claimed were anti-India in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack.

On Saturday, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that anybody in Assam found to be “directly or indirectly” supporting Pakistan in the aftermath of the attack would be charged under the National Security Act.

The Act allows for long periods of detention without trial and suspends important rights of the accused person, including the right to legal representation and immediate information about the cause of the arrest.