What an outrage! Hope sanity prevails at the high court level and the case is 
thrown out.

Cheers,

Santosh


On Friday, May 23, 2014 4:53 AM, Mayabhushan <mayabhus...@gmail.com> wrote:
 

>
>
>Sign of things to come?
>
>Goa: Facebook user faces jail term for anti-Modi comments
>by Mayabhushan Nagvenkar
>May 23, 2014 08:53 IST
>#BJP #Devu Chodankar #facebook #Goa #India #Lok Sabha #Narendra Modi
>Panaji: Before Narendra Modi is sworn in as prime minister on 26 May,
>a young shipbuilding professional may well be behind bars, for
>slamming the now former Gujarat chief minister on Facebook during the
>Lok Sabha election campaign.
>
>A trial court on Thursday rejected the anticipatory bail application
>moved by Devu Chodankar, a shipbuilding diploma holder working in
>Mumbai, clearing the way for his possible arrest, even as the police
>want to probe if Chodankar had broader plans to "promote communal and
>social disharmony" in Goa.
>
>During the run up to the Lok Sabha polls, Chodankar, in a post on
>Goa+, a popular forum with over 47,000 members, had claimed that if
>elected to power, Modi would unleash a 'holocaust'. He deleted his
>post subsequently.
>
>However, justifying his post subsequently on another popular local
>Facebook forum, Goa Speaks, Chodankar while apologising for his choice
>of words had stood by the sum of his argument, calling it his crusade
>against the "tyranny of fascists".
>
>He also claimed that some elitist right wing elements were in the
>process of filing a first information report with the Goa Police's
>Cyber Cell. The police came into the picture when former chairman of
>the Confederation of Indian Industries Atul Pai Kane filed an FIR
>against him in March this year under sections 153(A), 295(A) of the
>Indian Penal Code (IPC) and section 125 of the People's Representation
>Act and 66-A of the Information Technology Act.
>
>Some of the sections are non-bailable in nature.
>
>Kane in his complaint said Chodandkar had threatened Facebook users
>from voting for the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls. Opposition parties at
>that time had protested the FIR calling it an attempt by the BJP to
>muzzle criticism.
>
>"The complaint is against Devu for making inflammatory statements and
>trying to create communal disharmony, not comments against the BJP,"
>Kane had explained in his online post.
>
>Police, in their plea filed before the District and Sessions judge,
>more than agreed with Kane and now want custodial interrogation of
>Chodankar "for recovery of cyber forensic evidence at his instance"
>and the motive of the crime. Critically, police inspector Rajesh Job
>of the Cyber Cell in his say claims: "Custodial interrogation of the
>accused is very much essential to find out any motive of a larger game
>plan to promote communal and social disharmony in the state".
>
>Job claims that the delay in response by the Facebook legal cell
>forced the investigating police to resort to alternate means to
>confirm Chodankar's identity. Subsequently, two summons have already
>been issued to Chodankar. Facebook is still abuzz with comments on the
>incident.
>
>Writes Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mumbai alumnus Dr Samir
>Kelekar, who has been campaigning to drop police action against Devu
>for his post. "No one is justifying what Devu wrote, but it is
>draconian to put someone behind bars for a mere FB post which has had
>no affect on the society-at-large," he says. Chodankar's legal counsel
>Jatin Naik says the next step would be approach the High Court for
>relief.
>
>Read more at: 
>http://www.firstpost.com/politics/goa-facebook-user-faces-jail-term-for-anti-modi-comments-1538499.html?utm_source=ref_article
>
>
>

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