E-Paper
FIR against 13 for social media posts on Shivaji, CM, Pawars
PUNE The Pune Police have lodged a case against 13 persons, including one who was arrested, for posting objectionable and controversial content on historical figures and political personalities
PUNE The Pune Police have lodged a case against 13 persons, including one who was arrested, for posting objectionable and controversial content on historical figures and political personalities.
While the person arrested has been accused of posting objectionable content about a historical figure, 12 others booked in the case were charged with posting messages about chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, deputy CM Ajit Pawar and NCP president Sharad Pawar.
Following his arrest, Swarup Pralhad Bhosale (35), a resident of Sai Complex in Bhilarewadi, Pune, was remanded to police custody by the Pune court on Thursday for three days, according to assistant public prosecutor Dnyaneshwar More.
Bhosale was arrested at 8pm on Wednesday.
“We arrested him from Pune. He had made some sexual comments about Shivaji Maharaj on Twitter. The others booked in the case have made posts on various social media platforms about political leaders and have made caste-based comments to incite divisive feelings,” said senior inspector Dagdu Hake of the cyber-police station in Pune.
The group of booked people, however, are not working together as they all have made comments and posted content about various topics, as per the police.
“This does not seem to be a collective effort. We will be looking at the extent and role of each of them before deciding the next arrest,” said PI Hake.
The FIR was lodged based on a complaint filed by Akash Chandrakant Shinde (24), a private contractor and vice-president of the Yuva Sena in Pune.
“I had been keeping track of posts made by some accounts based on 51 screenshots collected two-three months ago. Their posts were earlier innocuous, and we ignored them. Recently the comments got very offensive and sexual in nature. Some of these people are in politics, some are social workers, and some are on the internet simply as trolls. One of the men from Jalna ran a Facebook group and a page where he posted offensive pictures and content. We decided that it is time to register an FIR,” said Shinde.
A case under Sections 153(a), 295(a), 469, 499500, 504, 505(2), and 34 of Indian Penal Code, along with Section 67 of the Information Technology Act has been registered at the cyber-police station against the 13.
