Sameet Thakkar

Nagpur Police arrested 30-year-old resident of the city named Sameet Thakkar for his comments against Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, his son and Cabinet Minister Aaditya Thackeray, Cabinet Minister Dr Nitin Raut and Mumbai Police Commissioner Parambir Singh on Twitter.

Many prominent political figures, including Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, follow him on the micro blogging site. Thakkar, who has over 44,000 followers on his twitter handle, in one such tweet, had referred to CM Thackeray as Modern day Aurangazeb? and Aaditya Thackeray as ?Baby Penguin? in his tweets on June 1, June 30 and July 1.

“Sameet Thakkar is arrested by Nagpur Police. #ReleaseSameetThakkar. Such A Coward Act #ReleaseSameetThakkar Now, Don’t Worry We Are With You #ReleaseSameetThakkar,” said BJP MLA from Uttar Pradeshs Jaunpur Dinesh Chaudhary.

On October 5, after Thakkar reached VP Road Police Station with two lawyers for recording his statement in the presence of cyber cell team of Mumbai Police, he escaped on the pretext of using a washroom.

On October 9, during the hearing in the Bombay High Court, Thakkar confessed of escaping due to the fear of arrest by the cyber cell. On October 16, the court again asked him to visit the VP Road Police Station to record his statement, but he did not turn up.

Mumbai-based advocate Dharmendra Mishra, who is also the legal consultant for Shiv Sena, had filed a complaint against Thakkar with the VP Road Police Station on July 13 under Sections 292 (obscene acts or words in public), 500 (defamation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and Section 67 (publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of Information Technology Act. Police had also issued summons to Thakkar previously to record his statement in the same regard.

On July 2, FIRs were registered against Thakkar at Mumbai’s VP Road police station and in Nagpur. The next hearing on his petition is scheduled for November 3.

I just used strong language, which does not sound unconstitutional in any form, if my post were abusive then why did not Twitter remove it? I simply used my exercised democratic rights to criticize the government. When V P Road police officers contacted me, I told them that I wouldn’t be able to visit them due to the ongoing lockdown and hence, I have sent my statement to the Police Commissioner and DCP via email, Thakkar had earlier told HT.

Several netizens had lashed out at Thakkar for his controversial tweet, while many supported him for his rights, using #BabyPenguin, which was trending on Twitter.

Thakkar had resisted by tweeting, Dur Dur ke rishtedaar bhi msg aur call kar ye sab bhej rahe hai kya mila bhai Modern Day Aurangzeb @OfficeofUT aur Baby Penguin @AUThackeray ye sab kar ke tum logo ko (even my distant relatives have been messaging me and calling me asking what we people get, after calling CM a Modern day Aurangzeb and Aaditya Thackeray as Baby Penguin).