On Tuesday, March 15, the Jewar police in Uttar Pradesh have registered an FIR against one Amir Khan. According to news agency ANI, the youth was charged for allegedly posting a morphed picture of Uttar Pradesh CM-designate Yogi Adityanath and BSP chief Mayawati on his Facebook account.
Amir Khan was booked under sections of IPC and The Information Technology Act, 2008.
Hindi daily Amar Ujala has reported that the matter was first brought to light after the morphed picture posted by Amir Khan on Facebook went viral. A complainant alerted the Uttar Pradesh police through his Twitter account. In turn, the police took notice and began an investigation. Soon after, an FIR was filed against Amir Khan.
According to the report, Amir Khan, who is a resident of Dayanatpur village of Jewar, had uploaded a photo on his Facebook account in which Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath and former CM Mayawati were shown as bride and groom. The morphed image also carried an offensive caption too.
The complainant shared the information on Twitter and urged Uttar Pradesh police to take appropriate action against the accused as swiftly as possible. An investigation was launched based on the Tweet, and after the police authenticated the information, they filed an FIR under the IT Act against Amir Khan.
In a similar incident that happened on February 20, 2020, the Uttar Pradesh police had arrested a Greater Noida trader, Chand Quraishi on charges of allegedly sharing an objectional post against Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Facebook. Quraishi has been booked under the Indian Penal Code section 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), among others. The arrest was made after a complaint was filed by local BJP leaders.
Similarly, in November last year, UP police officers apprehended Prashant Kanojia, a journalist and social media troll, after a case was filed against him at Hazratganj police station in Lucknow for posting derogatory tweets about Hindu gods and defamatory posts about UP CM Yogi Adityanath.
Prior to this, in June 2019, Peer Mohammad, a scrap dealer and Gola resident shared an “objectionable post” about Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on social media. After one Umesh Kumar Yadav filed a complaint about the post on his Twitter account, he was sent to the district jail. The same year, Ram Prasad, a nursing home manager from Shahpur, was imprisoned for allegedly posting “objectionable” social media posts.