Goa police summons techie in anti-Modi FB post case

The cyber crime cell of Goa police has summoned a 33-year-old engineer, who allegedly posted comments on social networking site Facebook against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for questioning on June 1.

Devu Chodankar would be asked to appear before police for questioning on Monday (June 1), Superintendent of police (Cyber Crime) Kartik Kashyap told PTI here today.

Meanwhile, Chodankar's lawyer Jatin Naik said they will not apply for anticipatory bail in a higher court now and would face police investigation on June 1.

"We will wait and watch. Devu will not apply for the anticipatory bail in the High Court," Naik said.

"We had planned to go to the High Court but decided to keep the plan on hold," he added.

Chodankar's anticipatory bail was rejected by a local court last week after the cyber crime cell told the judiciary that they wanted custodial interrogation of the accused.

The engineer's father had told police that Chodankar was out of the state and would require 15 days time to appear before them.

Goa-based businessman Atul Pai Kane had recently lodged a complaint in connection with Chodankar's Facebook post with the cyber crime cell.

The cell had moved the court here seeking custodial interrogation of Chodankar claiming that his FB post was a larger gameplan to "promote communal and social disharmony" in the state. Subsequently, his anticipatory bail was rejected by a local court.

Police had filed an FIR under section 153(A), 295(A) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), besides section 125 of the Representation of People Act and section 66-A of the Information Technology Act. Some of these sections are non-bailable.

Goa DGP T Mohan had yesterday assured a delegation of activists here that complete fairness would be observed while probing the case against Devu, who made some anti-Modi remarks on the social networking site on March 23 when the Lok Sabha was on.

However, the comments were deleted later.