Mangaluru man arrested for derogatory FB post against CM Kumaraswamy

Several posts on the ‘Kudla Trolls’ page, published after the state budget and following the demand for separate statehood, were seen to be abusing the CM.

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The Central Crime Branch of the Karnataka police arrested a man in Mangaluru on Friday for allegedly posting derogatory remarks against Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy on Facebook. The CCB sleuths in Mangaluru arrested 24-year-old Prashanth Poojary, a native of Kudla, on Friday night.

Prashanth Poojary is the administrator of the Facebook Page "Kudla Trolls". A few days ago, he had allegedly uploaded a post abusing the Chief Minister. The post shows a woman pointing to a picture of Kumaraswamy, asking, "Who is this?" In a picture below is the supposed answer, which referred to the CM with a common abuse in English.

“The post was derogatory in nature and could have instigated riots. Hence, we registered a suo motu case and arrested Prashanth. The post was taken down but there were a lot of fans of the Chief Minister who were getting inflamed because of the post. Also, the comment section was filled with abuses and threats,” a CCB officer said.

Police say that after perusing the page Kudla Trolls, the police learnt that there were several other “defamatory pictures against the Chief Minister”.

“We noticed that the trolls on the page were mostly political in nature. The trolling against the CM began after the budget was announced. Initially, most of the posts were mocking the state budget. They were statements alleging that coastal districts were neglected in the budget. But the latest posts came when the issue of the separate state came up,” the CCB officer added.

The police have booked Prashanth under section 153 (wantonly causing provocation with intent to cause riot) and 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) of the IPC.

This is not the first time a person has been arrested for trolling a Chief Minister of the state. In 2016, a man named Amaresh Vaali from Vijayapura district was arrested for morphing a photo of CM Siddaramaiah into an insulting image.