Influencer's Arrest Over Op Sindoor Post Stirs Row

A political row erupted on Sunday over the arrest of social media influencer Sharmishta Panoli by the Kolkata Police over a controversial social media post.

- Joydeep Thakur

KOLKATA: The ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) slammed the West Bengal government for its "selective enforcement" of the law.

Panoli, a 22-year-old law student from Pune in Maharashtra, was arrested in Gurugram on Friday night for allegedly hurting religious sentiments in an Instagram video on Operation Sindoor—India's military response to Pakistan over the Pahalgam terror attack. On Saturday, she was produced before the Alipore court in Kolkata, which remanded her in judicial custody for 14 days.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on Sunday, criticized Panoli's arrest, saying she had already deleted the video and publicly apologized for it prior to her arrest. "There have been no reports of communal unrest linked to her remarks, yet the Kolkata Police is acting with uncharacteristic haste. This is no longer about law and order—it is about selective enforcement," BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya said in a post on X.