A week after Shiv Sena workers targeted two girls of Palghar town in Maharashtra’s Thane district for their alleged post on Facebook on the Mumbai bandh on Bal Thackeray’s funeral, cadres of the Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) have lodged a complaint against a youth from the same town.
Sunil Vishwakarma (19) was questioned by the Thane police and Cyber Crime Investigation Cell on Wednesday after MNS cadre accused him of writing a Facebook post that “vehemently abused” Mr. Raj Thackeray. However, the police did not register a case against him.
“We have not booked any case in this matter. He has neither been detained nor arrested. We are done with our questioning,” Additional Superintendent of Police (Thane rural) Sangramsinh Nishandar told The Hindu.
Sources said Vishwakarma, however, claimed that his Facebook account was hacked and that the abusive post was uploaded by the hacker who created a false account in his name.
A week ago, the police,arrested Shaheen Dhada and Renu Srinivasan for their post on Facebook.
Keywords: Facebook comments, online freedom
It has become a joke how somehow comments on FaceBook are being taken
with such high sensitivity. Everyday on the streets people abuse
political leaders high and low. They are not hauled to the police
station every time they utter an abuse. Society needs to grow up and
accept that media like FaceBook has opened up access to media for
voices other than those that are politically powerful. These voices may
not always be well balanced and objective and would on many occasions
stray into the realm of abuses but we need to accept it as a trifling
price to safeguard free speech. A speech that can not cause offence is
not free speech. Learn from the US.
Happy to note the restrained approach by the Police this time. FB users
should also understand and be vigil about the possibility of this type
of hacking which may land them in problem.
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