Maharashtra's Nalasopara police has filed assault charges against a bank manager for allegedly filming a video of an altercation between a traffic cop and a biker, reports Afternoon DC. This video reportedly went viral on the mobile messaging app WhatsApp and other social networking sites following which several people reportedly criticised the cop's attitude. An Asian Age report suggests that 46,431 people had shared the video on Facebook within two days. After this, cops apparently filed charges against the bank manager, his associate and the biker under the section 353 (Assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) and section 34 (common intention), while a Times Of India report suggests that they were booked under sections 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharging of his duty) and 143 (being member of unlawful assembly). This case points out how some of the laws in India are arbitrary enough to be applied selectively. For instance, how is filming a video about a rogue act by a public servant deterring them from discharging their duties. Due to this arbitrariness, the police can easily throw the rule-book at the person if it wants to take anyone down, and the person is then left to the mercy of slow pace of India’s overburdened judicial system. What these incidents will also do is it will reduce the likelihood of people pointing out mistakes done by public servants and thereby reduce the propensity of people to voice criticism and dissent in a public forum. Warnings over sharing objectionable content on the Internet In June this year, we witnessed two incidents of arrest: an MBA student was arrested…
Please subscribe to MediaNama. Don't share prints and PDFs.
You May Also Like
News
Google has released a Google Travel Trends Report which states that branded budget hotel search queries grew 179% year over year (YOY) in India, in...
Advert
135 job openings in over 60 companies are listed at our free Digital and Mobile Job Board: If you’re looking for a job, or...
News
By Aroon Deep and Aditya Chunduru You’re reading it here first: Twitter has complied with government requests to censor 52 tweets that mostly criticised...
News
Rajesh Kumar* doesn’t have many enemies in life. But, Uber, for which he drives a cab everyday, is starting to look like one, he...