Devu Chodankar, the marine engineer booked for anti-Modi FB posts, will appear before the investigating authorities of the Cyber Crime Cell of Goa police on Monday at 11:00 am regarding the FIR registered against him . “Being a law abiding citizen, he will extend all cooperation to the investigating authorities regarding this matter. He has complete faith in the Constitution of India and in the Democratic principles ingrained therein and will abide by the same,” Advocate Jatin Naik, Mr. Chodankar’s lawyer told The Hindu on Saturday.
The shipping diploma holder from Goa is facing charges of inciting communal passions by putting up anti-Modi posts on facebook, as per a complaint lodged by businessman Atul Pai Kane . His anticipatory bail plea was recently rejected by a trial court here. The issue raised public outrage when political parties and civil society groups raised the large issue of freedom of expression . Another groups of netizens responded by raising concern over need to be socially responsible over posts on social media.
The Goa-based marine engineer said in his interview to PTI that his post was a reaction to BJP inducting controversial right wing leader Pramod Muthalik into the party, and maintained the issue had been blown out of proportion. Mr. Chodankar said he deleted the post soon after Mr. Muthalik, chief of Sri Rama Sene, was dropped from BJP following public outrage after his induction in March.
“It’s a petty issue which has been blown out of proportion. The post was a knee jerk reaction to Muthalik’s induction in BJP in Karnataka. As soon as he was removed from the party, I deleted the post,” he told PTI in his first media interview after the controversy broke out. Mr. Chodankar said since May 16, when he was issued summons by police, he had stopped logging into his FB account. “After posting the (anti-Modi) message, I have stopped logging in it. It all depends on inquiry and whether I would be allowed to log in again,” Mr Chodankar said.
