NEW Delhi (Sputnik) — Indian police have arrested a man for verbally abusing the country's prime minister on social networking site Facebook.
Thirumurugan, an aspiring engineer from Virudhunagar in the southern state of Tamil Nadu was arrested on the basis of a complaint lodged by Marimuthu, a functionary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to which Prime Minister Narendra Modi belongs.
The BJP official, in his police complaint, alleged that Thirumurugan verbally abused Prime Minister Modi while the two of them were chatting on the Facebook Messenger application.
According to the police, Thirumurugan showered abusive comments on the Prime Minister after Marimuthu sent him a meme about popular south Indian movie star Vijay of which Thirumurugan is an ardent fan. The meme was about actor Vijay's latest film Mersel, which has been in the news recently for being overtly critical of the Narendra Modi-led government's drive of linking adhar (a unique identification number allotted to Indian citizens with welfare schemes.
The movie was also objected to by the BJP party for its controversial dialogues on the newly introduced Goods and Service Tax and deteriorating public health care in India.
According to the police, Thirumurugan has confessed to having sent messages to Marimuthu verbally abusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He has been booked under section 67 of the Information Technology Act (Punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form).
About six months ago, more than half a dozen people were arrested in Uttar Pradesh for "derogatory" Facebook posts criticizing the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) hours after the party came to power in the north Indian state. The newly elected Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was under attack on social media for his alleged communal past.
In another case in 2012, Jadavpur university professor Ambikesh Mahapatra and his neighbor Subrata Sengupta were arrested for allegedly circulating a cartoon that lampooned West Bengal chief minister Mamta Banerjee. In 2015, the Calcutta high court directed the West Bengal government to pay 50,000 rupees to the duo as compensation for causing mental and physical harassment.
