KOCHI: Clicking on the 'like' button on Facebook has landed K H Muhammed Ali, a native of Eloor and Dubai municipality employee, in deep trouble. He has been charged with sedition and insulting national honour.

The only crime that Ali remembers doing is clicking 'like' on the Facebook profiles of friends, including a few Pakistanis, he earned in Dubai.

Now, the Kochi police have booked him for sedition, sending offensive message (66A of Information Technology Act, 2000), and for insulting the national flag (section 2 of Prevention of Insults to National Honor Act, 1971).

In the FIR filed in September 2012, it is alleged that Ali clicked 'like' on a Facebook page titled 'I Love Pakistan' and that a picture showing a dog clothed in the national flag was seen in his Facebook profile page.

On Tuesday, Ali filed a petition at the Kerala high court, through advocate K K Ashkar, challenging the FIR registered by the Eloor police.

Ali has contended in the petition that his Facebook account doesn't bear the message 'I Love Pakistan', doesn't have any pictures showing disrespect to the national flag, nor has sent any offensive message or pictures showing disrespect to the national flag.

He further pointed out that registering of FIR in cyber cases without a pre-investigation inquiry by an investigative agency with expertise in information technology is against the rules stipulated in the cyber crime investigation manual, the only such manual in India that was released by the Union home secretary.

After police registered the FIR alleging sedition, he and his family have been facing social stigma, Ali's petition said. His family has been isolated by the local community and relatives and they are being treated like traitors. His wife and younger child have been traumatized by the ordeal, the petition stated.

Kochi city police commissioner arrived at a hypothetical inference that amounts to character assassination, the petitioner alleged.

The petitioner has cited the commissioner's remark, which is extracted in the FIR, stating "as petitioner was working in UAE and his remark in the Facebook 'I Love Pakistan' and his close relation with Pakistanis in UAE may indulge in antisocial activities". Such a casual statement prejudicially affects the liberty of the petitioner and has caused mental trauma, social ostracism, and persecution, it is alleged.