Postcard News owner Mahesh Hegde arrested by Bengaluru police

The Bengaluru police have arrested Mahesh Hegde, the owner of Postcard News. The police said that he had been arrested on charges of allegedly promoting communal disharmony in a bid to attempting to blemish the ruling Congress government in Karnataka.

There are two cases against Hegde. One was registered at the Sanjayanagar police station last year, while the other was filed on March 21 with the Cyber Crime Police station.

The allegation is that he had posted a fake news on the Twitter account of Postcard.news on March 18 while using a photo of a Jain Muni. He had said, "Very sad news. In Karnataka Jain Muni attacked by Muslim youth... No one is safe in Siddaramaiah's Karnataka".

Gaffar Baig, a resident of Whitefield, approached the Cyber Crime police and filed a complaint on March 21. The police registered the case under sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc, and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony), 120B (criminal conspiracy), 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and section 66 (computer-related offences) of the Information Technology (IT) Act.

The case was registered against Hegde, Postcard News, Gaurav Pradhan and Deepak Shetty. The police said that the news was related to an accident at a village near Nanjangud on March 11 which was caused by a drunk rider in which the Jain Muni was injured.

OneIndia News