VIJAYAWADA: For the first time ever in the Telugu states, police on Friday took action against a netizen for attacking political leaders on social media.
The Thullur Police on Friday arrested satirist Inturi Ravi Kiran, for his ‘derogatory’ illustration of chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu and his son and IT minister Nara Lokesh. The cops were reportedly acting on a complaint filed by the AP Assembly secretary.
The Thullur police from Amaravati raided the residence of Ravi Kiran at Shamshabad on the outskirts of Hyderabad at around 3.30 am and whisked him away. According to Ravi Kiran’s wife Sujana, some strangers knocked on their door in the wee hours of Friday and asked her husband to accompany them to Guntur.
“When I questioned them, one of them identified himself as a police officer from Thullur and said they were taking my husband to question him on the comments he had posted on the Facebook on the TDP leaders. They have not told me where they were taking my husband,” Sujana told reporters in Hyderabad.
Sujana has submitted a representation to Shamshabad DCP PV Padmaja alleging illegal detention of her husband by the Andhra Pradesh Police. A senior police officer from Cyberabad told media that the local police were intimated about the issue and it was then that Kiran was apprehended.
Ravi Kiran, who reportedly works in the social media wing of the YSRC, operates the Facebook page Political Punch. He has been posting satirical comments against Naidu, Lokesh among other TDP leaders. A visit to the Facebook page indicates that a majority of the posts were made poking fun at Lokesh by morphing his photographs and referring him as ‘Pappu’.
However, the said post which attracted the ire of law enforcement agencies was the one where Lokesh asks his father to send him to the AP Legislative Council which is referred as ‘Peddala Sabha’ in local parlance. Replacing the AP Legislative Council board, Ravi Kiran placed a photograph of a couple kissing with the caption ‘Adults Only’.
It may be recalled that Lokesh was elected to the state legislative council and inducted into the Cabinet last month.
Police said the Facebook post came to the notice of Lokesh who in turn took up the issue with AP Assembly Secetary K Satyanarayana. The latter lodged a complaint with the police stating that he received a WhatsApp message which had the AP Legislative Council building and photos of Naidu and Lokesh.
Speaking to reporters, Guntur Rural SP Narayan Naik said that they were looking into the complaint lodged by the Assembly Secretary and had arrested the accused. “He will be produced in court on Saturday,” SP said. However, when questioned why Ravi Kiran who was picked up around 3.30 am in Hyderabad did not reach Thullur even after sunset, he said the police team could not arrive as per schedule due to tyre puncture. He said that based on the complaint, a case had been registered against Ravi Kiran under Section 67 of the IT Act and under 292 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Soon after taking over as the IT minister, Lokesh had expressed his intentions to clamp restrictions on social media campaign to defame the State government and the Chief Minister. He expressed anger over the social media posts during a party meeting and hinted at legal action against those who were “deliberately indulging in personal attacks to tarnish the image of the TDP”.
He reportedly suggested that officials concerned prepare a report to make a few amendments to the IT Act and bring the social media campaigns under control. A small group of techies have been entrusted with the job of monitoring the Internet and initiating immediate action “to protect the government from malicious campaigns”.