Chennai: The DMK Treasurer M.K. Stalin on Sunday accused the Tamil Nadu Police of “joining hands” with the IT wing of ruling AIADMK in “harassing” DMK cadres on charges of spreading rumours against Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s health and warning of blocking their accounts on social networking sites.
In a statement, the Leader of Opposition said the Chennai Police should stop “targeting” DMK cadres who use social networking sites like Facebook and said the action leads to doubts in one’s mind whether the men in khaki were hand-in-glove with the AIADMK in creating an impression that men from the DMK are behind rumours.
“The DMK wishes that the Chief Minister recovers well and resumes her duties soon. But acting against members of the DMK solely based on false complaints from the AIADMK by summoning them for questioning and threatening to block their Facebook accounts is condemnable. This action of the Chennai Police is highly condemnable,” Mr Stalin said.
In the name of taking action against those spreading rumours, the police are targeting DMK men and the party will never tolerate such actions, Mr Stalin said, adding that all the seven arrests so far have taken place only based on complaints from the IT wing of the AIADMK.
“Police booked these 7 and 52 others under Section 505 of the IPC since they knew that they couldn’t charge them under Section 66 (A) of the Information Technology Act, which was scrapped by the Supreme Court,” he said.
While Section 505 of the IPC deals with those make, publish or circulate any statement, rumour or report with intent to cause, or which is likely to cause, fear or alarm to the public, Section 66A dealt with providing punishment for sending offensive messages through communication services. The arrest of two bank employees in Coimbatore last week based just on a conversation between the two goes against the Supreme Court ruling. This has also been done only at the instance of AIADMK men, Mr Stalin alleged.
