A man in Indian city of Agra was arrested for posting cartoons of country’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other leaders.

New Delhi, Feb 5/ Nationalturk – A man in Indian city of Agra was arrested for posting cartoons of country’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Communications Minister Kapil Sibal and political party Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on social networking site Facebook.

Police officials, pleading anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media said that a person hailing from Indian city of Agra  had posted cartoons of India’s Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, Communications Minister Kapil Sibal and political party Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on Facebook.

They said the engineer, who was identified as Sanjay Chowdhary was arrested from his residence in Agra last evening. His moble, laptop, SIM card and data card were seized and are being scrutinised .

Case was fast-tracked: Police

“The case was fast tracked once cartoons lampooning the three leaders were posted on his Facebook wall. Soon after his arrest, the inflammatory posts were deleted from his Facebook profile and later his account was deactivated,” they said.

The officials said Chowdhary was arrested and booked under sections 153 A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and 66 A of the Information Technology (IT) Act.

Meanwhile, India’s TV channel CNN-IBN quoted Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Agra, Subhash Chandra Dubey as saying that police had acted purely on law and order basis in the matter. “We are not involved in political angle of the whole issue, our concern were the inflammatory comments and posts on the Facebook wall of this man and we acted to prevent any communal flare up,” he said.

There have been scores of such cases in India, where a person has been arrested for posting cartoons, caricatures and posts on Facebook.

Earlier, in 2012 after the death of rightwing Hindu leader and Shiv Sena chief Bal Thakeray, police arrested two girls from Indian city of Mumbai for posting comments on the rightwing Hindu leader. After criticism from the civil society and cross section of society, police withdrew charges against the girls and released them.

 

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Faiz Ahmad / NationalTurk India News

 

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