Does criticism of a chief minister invite arrest? In a dictatorship, yes. So also it seems in BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh where a simplesocial media post by 19-year old, Abhishek Mishra got the young man behind bars!
Madhya Pradesh police arrested a 19-year-old engineering student for a social media post on demonetisation and attacking chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and the BJP on the issue.
Nineteen-year-old Abhishek Mishra, a resident of Chhatarpur, was first detained on November 11 and then arrested by cyber cell of Bhopal police on November 12 from a private hostel. Initially, the police kept the news of his arrest a secret. He was bailed out on November 13.
Police sources said cops seized the student’s laptop, mobile phone, accessed his accounts and deleted the controversial posts.Calling himself an RTI activist and video maker “in order to spread awareness among people” Abhishek has been a critic of the saffron brigade. The demonetisation issue was his latest topic.
The Hindustan Times reported that he has 16,000 followers and after his ‘controversial posts’ were deleted the number of his tweets on his Twitter page read 45 evening.
Police registered an FIR under section 469 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and 66C of Information Technology Act, 2000 against him at the cyber crime cell.
Town inspector cyber cell, Bhopal, Ravikant Dehariya confirmed the arrest.“Abhishek was involved in posting offensive comments and posts against the chief minister and other important dignitaries. He was also running a website. We arrested him, deleted all the posts from his Facebook and also blocked his website,” he said.
But Dehariya refused to disclose the exact complaint against Abhishek. “The arrest was made after collecting all the evidence against Mishra by the technical wing of cyber cell.”
Despite efforts Abhishek Mishra could not be contacted.
However, Abhishek’s lawyer Ajay Mishra said, “After demonetisation, a newspaper had published news that police had seized money from the car of a BJP leader in Hoshangabad district. According to charges levelled against him, Abhishek had shared a photograph of the news and pasted the picture of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.”
He added, “Someone in the CM’s house saw the post and informed the cyber cell and the police took action against him. The police also seized his laptop, dongle and mobile phone and some other electronic gadgets. Despite repeated requests, police are not providing the copy of the FIR,” he added.
Additional inspector general of cyber cell (crime) Vijay Khatri said the cell was dealing with the case and it is the town inspector (TI) who would give all the details.