Two Delhi-based lady journalists who came to Tripura to report on the recent communal incidents in the state were detained by the Assam police at Karimganj’s Neelam Bazar close to the Assam-Tripura border on Sunday.

Samriddhi Sakunia (21) and Swarna Jha (25), journalists with the independent news website HW News Network, were named in a First Information Report (FIR) at Fatikroy Police Station of Tripura on Sunday based on a complaint filed by a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) activist, alleging that they had maligned the image of Tripura government by their reportsm The duo were first detained in a hotel in Agartala, and then allowed to leave. Later, the Tripura police detained them from Assam, and were kept at a government-run shelter home for women for the night.

In a tweet, Sakunia wrote, “We have been detained at the Nilambazar police station, Karimganj, Assam. We were informed by the officer-in-charge of Nilambazar PS that SP of Gomti District gave the orders for our detention.”

The VHP’s complaint is regarding a story that the two journalists were reporting on, about a mosque that was burnt in Gomati district and a copy of the Quran was damaged. Police claimed that the videos uploaded by the journalists were doctored, a claim that the journalists have denied

In a tweet on November 11, Sakunia had written, “#Tripuraviolence Darga Bazaar: On 19th October at around 2:30 am, some unidentified people burnt down the mosque in Darga Bazaar area. People in the neighborhood are very upset with the fact that now they don’t have any place nearby to go and pray.”