Techie held for derogatory Facebook posts

Uttar Pradesh Police have arrested an engineer for allegedly posting “objectionable and inflammatory”  comments on Facebook against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Union Minister Kapil Sibal and Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Sanjay Chaudhary, who also runs a school in Agra town, about 350 kilometers from Lucknow, was arrested on Monday after the police came to know about the content of his posts on the social networking site.

“The police acted on a specific information...the content was found to be communal and objectionable,” said a senior official here. The intelligence department had informed the Agra police about the posts.

According to the officials, Chaudhary had posted “cartoons” lampooning Manmohan Singh, Sibal and Mulayam Singh Yadav. “There were also posts against a particular community,” the officials added.

They said the posts had been deleted and his Facebook account has been “deactivated”. “The laptop, data card and sim card of the man have been seized,” the officials said.

Chaudhary is a civil engineer and also owns a voluntary organisation. He feigned ignorance about the posts and alleged that his account had been hacked. “I have not posted them,” he told the police.

According to sources, the police swung into action immediately after getting the information that the posts also targeted the chief of the ruling party in the state.
Chaudhary has been booked under sections 153 A of the Indian Penal Code (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion) and 66 A of the Information Technology (IT) Act, that deals with “offending messages”.

Earlier two girls had been arrested in Maharashtra's Palghar area after they had made alleged `objectionable' posts after the death of the Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackerey. They were later released following a nationwide condemnation and cases against them were also dropped.