Hyderabad: In a scene straight out of a dystopian playbook, officials from the Chaderghat police station on the pretext of detecting crime, randomly checked phones and pockets of young men sitting in a cafe. Many on social media have called out the Hyderabad police, questioning the legality of the move, given that it points towards the violation of one’s right to privacy.
A video of the incident surfaced on social media a day earlier on July 25, wherein a group of cops from the Chaderghat police station descend upon the cafe (which has not been identified) and randomly begin asking young men, visibly Muslim, for their phones and for them to empty their pockets.
This is however not the first time that something like this has happened with the Hyderabad police, which has in the past also checked phones and Whatsapp messgaes of people during public checks on the pretext of detecting drug consumers or sellers.
In a the video that was posted a day ago, policemen can be clearly seen and heard saying
check the phone” to each other, after which they promptly proceed to check the phones of unassuming young men.
In 2021, the Hyderabad police came under fire when cops in Dhoolpet did something similar. Policemen stopped random people on the road to frisk them on the pretext of containing the drug menace and made people show them their Whatsapp chats. It drew severe criticism.
In this case from Chaderghat as well many in comments questioned the legality of how police officials were checking phones. It may be noted that thw Supreme Court in 2017 ruled that the right to privacy is a fundamental right.
When contacted about the incident, an official from the Chaderghat police station simply said that officials were checking phones for illegal betting apps and had “no other intention”. Illegal betting apps are where unsuspecting people are lured into a money trap and end up losing money to scamsters.
However it is not clear whether the police were trying to find scamsters or were trying to prevent users from falling into the scam itself.
Search illegal, but no specific law to deal with this
Activist Srinivas Kodali said that such searches by the Hyderabad police are not new and that these are unlawful. “This is also happening in Andhra Pradesh as well. Such searches are not legal but if people question the police then they can even get detained on some pretext or the other,” he added.
