Karnataka CM's twitter gaffe, again: Compromises POCSO victim's identity

The Chief Minister's office realised the blunder and deleted the tweet. A fresh tweet was posted soon after.

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah invited social media wrath on Saturday when his Twitter handle posted the name of a pre-school in Bengaluru where sexual assault cases had come to light recently. The chief minister's office deleted the tweet as soon as it realised the blunder. A fresh tweet was posted but the damage had already been done.

The Karnataka chief minister only wanted to convey that stringent action will be taken against those accused in Protection of children from sexual offences cases in a pre-school in Bengaluru but he did the unexpected. He went ahead and mentioned the name of the pre-school in his tweet even as he mentioned that it was a POCSO case. The tweet was later deleted and a fresh tweet was posted.

According to POCSO as well as Juvenile Justice act, disclosing details such as the name of victim, parents, address, school etc amounts to compromising the identity of the victim and hence a punishable offence. POCSO states that a person who reveals the identity of a victim is liable to be sent to jail for six months to one year and fine or both. Siddaramaiah had previously invited social media wrath when his handle tweeted Siachen instead of Sichuan in China.

Since Siddaramaiah had also tagged Bengaluru Police Commissioner Praveen Sood in the tweet, we wonder if action will be taken against the chief minister for violating POCSO.

OneIndia News