Madras high court quashes FIR against YouTuber arrested for tweet on chopper crash

Justice GR Swaminathan of the court's Madurai bench noted that offences mentioned in the FIR were not made out in the tweet.

The Madras high court on Tuesday quashed an FIR registered by the Madurai Police against a YouTuber, who was arrested on December 9 after he posted a ‘controversial’ tweet over the Indian Air Force (IAF) helicopter crash, which took place near Coonoor in the state's Nilgiris district the day before.

The crash site near Coonoor in Tamil Nadu's Nilgiris district (PTI PHOTO.)

Justice GR Swaminathan of the high court's Madurai bench quashed the FIR noting that the offences mentioned in it were not made in out in the tweet. The city police had booked the YouTuber, Maridhas, under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) including those related to ‘promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence.’

Maridhas, from his twitter handle @MaridhasAnswers, had tweeted in Tamil that 'Tamil Nadu is becoming another Kashmir under the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK).' Though he subsequently deleted the tweet, a DMK functionary lodged a complaint against him, resulting in his arrest.

In the wake of General Rawat's death, arrests have been made across several states over ‘derogatory’ social media posts against him.

The IAF has constituted a tri-service Court of Inquiry (CoI) to investigate the crash.

(With PTI inputs)