By Shaik Zakeer Hussain, TwoCircles.net,
Bengaluru: The Bangalore Central Crime Branch arrested five Muslim youths here on Saturday, for allegedly circulating a morphed photo of Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi on instant messaging service WhatsApp.
The arrested youths all hailing from the coastal district of Bhatkal were picked up by the City Crime Branch on May 24, following a complaint lodged in Belgaum district by RTI activist and supposedly BJP supporter Jayant Mukund Tinaikar. In his complaint Mr. Tinaikar said that he received the allegedly offensive message against Modi on WhatsApp on May 16.
The youths have been identified as Waqas Barmawar, Rahmatulla Maliki, Usama Alangar, Musaib Saada, and Saad Kola. Among them, Musaib and Saad are said to be pursuing CA studies in Bangalore while the other three are students of MBA doing internship in the city. After several hours of questioning, four of them were released on Sunday, while Waqas, a 25-year-old MBA student and an Aam Aadmi Party activist was handed over to Belgaum Police for further interrogation.
The MMS photo, which got the youths in the soup, allegedly shows the final rites of Modi being performed, attended by L K Advani, Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Baba Ramdev, Maneka Gandhi and Varun Gandhi, with the headline running, “Na Jeet Paye Jhooton Ka Sardar – Ab Ki Baar Antim Sanskar,” a pun on BJP’s election slogan “Abki Bar Modi Sarkar”.
The arrest of the youths has come in the wake of a similar incident reported from Goa, where a young shipbuilding professional named Devu Chodankar, was arrested for allegedly posting a derogatory statement against Modi on his Facebook page. Though the post was later deleted, but what would generally be considered as an innocent criticism in a free country was condemned as crime, and the youth is currently being probed for “promoting communal and social disharmony” in the state.
Following the arrest, angry AAP activists said that it was a violation of freedom of speech and expression and that they would hold state-wide protests against the incident. The AAP unit in Bhatkal too has decided to hold a protest till Waqas is released and the charges dropped.
Waqas is to be produced before a court in Khanapur, Belgaum district, on Monday.