What irks 'Facebook martyrs' Shaheen, KV Rao and Mayank?

Mumbai, Nov 24: In recent times, India has witnessed arrest of several Facebook users who have vented their anger against politicians in the social networking sites. Maharashtra's Palghar girl Shaheen Dhada hogged the limelight over her controversial post on Bal Thackeray and bandh in Maharashtra on Facebook. Shaheen's friend, who has been identified as Rini Srinivasan, "liked" her comment and landed in the legal trouble.

Shaheen said that she does not regret what she had done. Twenty-one-year-old Dhada, who earlier had apologised for her act, on Friday, Nov 23 retracted from her previous statement and slammed those police officials who had arrested her and one of her friends.

Dhada's father too criticised police act saying, "We say we are free, but in many ways, we are still not." Dhada and her family members seem to have received courage following a report submitted by an inquiry team led by Inspector General of the Konkan Police on Friday.

The report said that the arrests of Dhada and her friend were unjustified and recommended action against the police officers involved."People like Thackeray are born and die daily and one should not observe a bandh for that," Dhada had reportedly written on her Facebook wall.

The duo were reportedly booked under Section 295(a) of the IPC (for hurting religious sentiments) and Section 64(a) of the Information Technology Act, 2000. They were later granted bail on surety of Rs 15,000 each. Shaheen, it was said, withdrew her comment and apologised before the vandalism took place. Later, they were released on bail.

In another shocking example of the alleged misuse of Information and Technology Act, two men -- KV Rao and Mayank -- were arrested for allegedly posting offensive comments against some Congress leaders on their Facebook group earlier this year.

The duo was employed with the national carrier, Air India. They were arrested in May on the basis of a complaint filed last year. After suffering all these months, they have ended their silence for the first time on news channel on Friday. Out on bail, they narrated their tale of alleged harassment.

"This is injustice. They arrested us at 1 am. They gave no reasons for the arrest as well. This is misuse of power," alleged Rao.

His wife Rajshree said, "They said 'we are police, we can arrest anyone at any point of time'. My kids were scared to the core. In the middle of the night they asked us to come to the police station."

"I was humiliated badly. Policemen with machine guns came in the night and took me away," the other accused, Mayank, said.

OneIndia News