MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has directed the police not to arrest a Thanjavur-based man, who had posted a comment on his Facebook page allegedly inviting Muslims to do ‘jihad’, following an anticipatory bail petition filed by him.
The police had registered a case against the petitioner, one M Imran alias Mohamed Imran, a textile shop owner from Mallipattinam village in Thanjavur, for allegedly posting a comment in Tamil on his Facebook page telling Muslims that they should either learn ‘jihad’ or learn to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’. He was booked under Sections 295 A, 505 (i), 505 (ii) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, (punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) on charges of posing threat to the nation’s internal security.
However, the petitioner denied the charges and submitted that the comment was just an expression of his opinion which, according to him, is a fundamental right guaranteed by the constitution. He prayed the court to grant him anticipatory bail.
Justice P Rajamanickam, who had heard the case, sought counter from the police and adjourned the case for a week with directions to police not to arrest the petitioner till then.