Police visit silences techie blogger
By Yasmin Ahmed

Fond of expressing strong views on the web?  Take a breather and think of what you may face after that, and see what happened to a techie who did it recently. The recent skirmishes in the Indian state of Maharashtra over who is the real Mumbaiite has had many a non-Mumbaiite fuming against Raj Thackeray and his organization.  A blogger let loose and the police came calling.

“A” (that’s his blog name) did just that and had the police knocking at his doors within hours of his having logged off the screen.

‘A’s’ four page blog on ‘The Truth About Kurla Best Bus Encounter, Mumbai Police and Politicians” spoke things like ‘people like Raj Thackeray should be killed’ and accused Mumbai police of gunning down Patna youth Rahul Raj in a fake encounter aboard a BEST double-decker. DNA reports that the detectives of the Cyber Crime Investigation Cell found the blog while they did their routine monitoring of blogs and tracked the IP address to ‘A’s’ house in Thakur Complex in Kandivili (East), Mumbai where he lives with his parents.

‘A’ is an engineering graduate who runs a software firm as well as an online advertising business. The police made a home visit in this case and recorded a statement and are looking into whether a case can be made out against him within the framework of law. The police think his blog amounted to inciting violence among the public and has nothing to do with his political opinion which he is perfectly entitled to.

The police visit has had its effect certainly. Techgoss tracked down the blog and found that the offending blog entry had been removed and regrets for posting the same has been posted instead. Not just that, he has also cautioned other bloggers to be aware of the cyber laws and given a link from his blog to the cyber laws to be observed. The blog, while apologizing profusely, says:

“
I have removed this post as some people might believe this to be based on facts. I thought it was obvious that its not. I'll just say sorry. I deeply apologize to anyone and authorities for inconvenience and possibly my immaturity. I encourage all bloggers to understand cyber laws at their website.
“

No, comments are not enabled in this blog, in case you were thinking of saying something about his guts or the lack of it.  And do remember the police monitor blogs and community websites regularly for offensive material, so you could be noticed.

If you want, you can read his older posts but the one about Raj Thackeray not owning Mumbai has also disappeared.