Allege intimidation, attempt to curb freedom of speech
TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: Police action against Devo Chodankar is an attempt to intimidate and curb freedom of speech, protestors agitating police charged today.
“The police have claimed that they want to access his (Devu) laptop from where the message was posted on the Facebook. The message was posted on March 23 and summonses were issued on May 12. Police say that there was delay on the part of Facebook to respond to their query. This is absolutely wrong. Two months after the post, what will you get on the laptop is the record that FB was accessed, that’s all,” Sameer Kelekar, an IITian and cybercrime expert told reporters addressing a press conference before walking to Police HQ with the protestors.
Kelekar alleged that “police had filed FIR to harass Chodankar by getting him into their custody.” He said that the action initiated against Chodankar under Section 66-A of the Information Technology Act itself has been challenged in the Supreme Court.
“We find the complaint was unwarranted as Devu had immediately withdrawn the post and had also apologized,” he added. “The BJP government’s act in regards to this case might silence the youth from expressing themselves through social networking sites,” he added.
Later, speaking to media persons, Independent legislator from Fatorda Vijay Sardesai commented “Modi needs to be magnanimous and should not indulge in such petty things. BJP government is trying to murder Democracy,” he added.
Joining him was the Congressman Alexio Reginaldo who has announced to file complaints against some of the BJP cadres who are trying to tarnish his image through Facebook. “During election time, there were several posts against me and the Congress party. But we never took it so seriously. BJP should accept criticism,” he added.
GPCC President John Fernandes has warned to take to streets if justice is not delivered to Chodankar.
Meanwhile, a panel discussion between a politician, a journalist and a technocrat through up an interesting question – whether the move to file an FIR against a man for his allegedly inappropriate facebook post was planned conspiracy to try and send a warning to others not to attack certain persons or whether it was just the police doing their job.
Vijai Sardessai, Sameer Kelekar and Satguru Patil, a journalist debated on the sets of local channel HCN about what had happened was right or was it a concerted effort to muzzle public voices.
Sardessai questioned whether the State machinery would also move as fast or as rigorously against complaints made against somebody else. However, Patil sought to say that this should not be seen as a conspiracy by the government and could be just the police taking action against a complaint given that the complainant was a prominent businessman and said to be close to the powers that be.
Crime & Punishment
CID/CB have filed a case under sections 153 and section 295 A IPC, sec 123 of representation of Peoples Act and sec 66 (A) of the Information Technology Act 2000 over the postings /comments made by the accused on the Goa Plus Group of social media site Facebook.
According to the police the comments are very serious and communally and socially sensitive in nature.
Police say that the offence committed by the accused is very serious in nature and if no proper steps had been taken at correct it in time, it would have led to communal violence.
