The Telangana Police on Wednesday arrested a student from Andhra Pradesh for allegedly making and sharing a ‘derogatory’ video about Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao online. The 20-year-old undergraduate student from the neighbouring state had made the video using the TikTok app.
Rachakonda police, one of the three police commissionerates which cover Hyderabad and its outskirts, arrested Thagaram Naveen, a native of Tiruvuru in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh.
The accused was charged under Section 153 (Wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 67 of the Information Technology Act for allegedly promoting enmity between different groups. Police also seized two smart phones from the accused.
"It is a case of promoting enmity between the people of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana by making a video and using derogatory language against the Chief Minister and the people of Telangana," said Rachakonda Police Commissioner Mahesh M. Bhagwat.
The video was made and uploaded on social media on April 14.
On a complaint by V. Ram Narasimha Goud, president of the students' wing of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), the Cyber Crimes Wing of Rachakonda police had registered the case against Naveen.
This is not the first time that someone who has criticsed KCR on a social media platform has been arrested.
In November 2017, The Telangana police arrested two youths from Mandhapally village in Duggondi mandal of Warangal Rural District, for allegedly abusing the Chief Minister, in a video on Facebook.
As the video began spreading on social media, a complaint was lodged by TRS Duggondi mandal president Akula Srinivas.
In another incident in the same month, a TSRTC employee was suspended from service on the charge of 'misguiding the public’ as he reportedly took to Facebook and criticised the government’s policies.
IANS inputs