The Karnataka cybercrime police have arrested a serial fake news peddler on social media who goes by the user name Bhiku Mhatre for sharing an edited clip of Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah on reservations and posting a tweet on Congress manifesto, alleging the Congress aimed to take wealth from Hindus and distribute it among to Muslims.
FIR lodged
The arrest was made based on a complaint filed by a Congress worker, alleging that Mhatre, who operates on microblogging site X as @MumbaichaDon has posted statements in a bid to “trigger communal unrest in society by intentionally creating hatred between Hindus and Muslims”.
He was arrested from the South Goan city of Ponda, under section 153(a) (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, and race) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and 66(c) (dishonestly making use of the electronic signature, password or any other unique identification feature of any other person) of the Information Technology Act.
Legal notice
However, a day ahead of arrest, the user shared a screenshot of a mail from X’s legal team announcing that it had received a court order from Magistrate Bengaluru City concerning his account. The user captioned Congress wants to intimidate him from speaking the truth and maintain that he “had never written anything which may be called inflammatory or communal”.
BJP leaders assured legal support
The arrest has sparked outrage among BJP leaders, who have accused the state government of “blatant abuse of power” and assured legal support to Mhatre.
“Spoke to @Tejasvi_Surya re the case. Legal support has been assured (sic),” Smriti Irani wrote on X.
The head of the BJP’s IT unit, Amit Malviya, charged that the Karnataka Congress government was “intolerant of dissent”.
Bangalore South BJP MP Tejasvi Surya declared, “We will fight this, both inside courts and outside.”
Vinod Tawde, a BJP politician from Maharashtra, also expressed amazement at @MumbaichaDon’s detention.
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