Devu Chodankar's arrest for anti-Modi post on Facebook ordered by court: Parrikar

Panaji: Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parikkar on Saturday said that the arrest of young shipping professional Devu Chodankar for Facebook posts against Prime Minister-elect Narendra Modi was ordered by a court and that the government has nothing to do with it. Parrikar tweeted, "A prominent citizen complained about a Facebook post, which was registered as per Supreme Court guidelines by the police. The anticipatory bail was rejected by the court as per evidence and the government has no role."

Chodankar has been absconding ever since a complaint was filed against his controversial post on Facebook which alleged that if Narendra Modi came to power, Christians would lose their identity in south Goa. In a post in March this year, Chodankar had said if Modi comes to power, he would unleash a 'holocaust', a post that the police claimed was later deleted.

Chodankar had posted the comment on March 23 and was summoned by Goa police on May 12. He has been booked under the contentious section 66A of the IT Act along with sections of 153(A) and 295(A) of the Indian Penal Code. The FIR was registered by former chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industries Atul Pai Kane.

Chodankar's lawyer Jatin Naik said, "This is saffronisation of Goa Police. What is the need of custodial interrogation? It is a facebook post."

Superintendent of Police Kartik Kashyap said that the comments qualify for a cognizable offence, "He is absconding despite our serving two summons. We need his custodial interrogation as we have to recover few hardware items. Prima facie, the comments does qualify for a cognizable offence."

This wasn't the first time when political comments have created such a furore. Earlier, comments on late Bal Thackeray resulted in the arrest of the two Palghar girls and it forced the Maharashtra government to rethink arrests made after invoking the controversial IT Act.