THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Voices questioning the credibility of electronic voting machines (EVM) and the Election Commission of India seem to be getting louder on social media in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls. But the EC is not taking the issue lightly and has asked the police to initiate legal action against those engaged in spreading canards about the poll panel and voting machines.
Following the directive, the state police have registered three cases and have forwarded around six other complaints to various district police chiefs for legal action. The police registered the cases suo motu based on the information provided by the social media monitoring cell of the state police. The cyber wing had commenced social media monitoring related to the general elections after the EC issued the poll notification on March 16.
The first case was registered on Friday against a Malappuram native for posting a message on social media claiming that a three-week lockdown will be enforced in the country to enable manipulation of EVMs. “The case was registered in Malappuram and a person from that district was arrested in this regard,” said a police source.
On Monday, the police registered two more cases — one each in Thiruvananthapuram and Pathanamthitta — for spreading canards questioning the credibility of the EVMs. The source said the EC had directed them to take legal action against people, who try to undermine the trust people has on the constitutional body and voting machines.
36 accounts flagged for circulating catty content
Apart from registering cases, the monitoring cell has also identified up to seven incidents in which suspicion was raised on the integrity of the Election Commission and electronic voting machines, on social media.
“Those incidents have been reported to the respective district police. The police will scrutinise the content and register cases if they concur with our initial analysis that an offence has been committed,” the source added.
In the cases registered so far, IPC section 171 pertaining to electoral offences has been pressed against the accused.
The social media cell had earlier flagged 36 personal and group accounts on social media for circulating malicious content depicting various political parties and their leaders in poor light and directed the social media houses to take them down.
The police have managed to get the offensive contents removed in 13 cases.
In five cases, the contents were removed by the social media platforms on the request of the police, while in the rest of the cases, the uploaders themselves purged the contents after being warned of legal action by the police.