India’s social media regulation has come under scrutiny this week, after two girls were arrested for posting a Facebook comment criticising a shutdown of the city after the death of a local political leader.
Shaheen Dhada, who wrote the post, and her friend Renu Srinivasan, who hit “like” when she saw the post on Facebook, were arrested on Sunday in Palghar near Mumbai by state police under Section 66A of the country’s Information Technology Act, and section 505 (2) of the Indian Penal Code.
The two girls were later released on bail.
The women were charged with “creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes”. They were also charged under the Information Technology Act.
After Dhada’s comment appeared on Facebook, a mob attacked and vandalised her uncle Abdul Dhada’s clinic in Palghar on Sunday.
Police said on Tuesday that they had arrested nine people in connection with the attack and were “looking for some more people”.
The death of Bal Thackeray, the Hindu nationalist politician who founded the Shiv Sena party, brought Mumbai to a halt for most of the weekend.
In her Facebook comment on Sunday, 21-year-old Shaheen Dhada wrote: “People like Thackeray are born and die daily and one should not observe a ‘bandh’ [shutdown] for that.”
The arrests led to outrage in India, with many accusing the government of “abuse of authority”.
Section 505 (2) of the IPC deals with spreading rumors or alarming news that can promote enmity, hatred, and ill-will between religious, racial, and linguistic communities and castes. But Section 66A of the IT Act is seen by analysts as more likely to be misused by law enforcement agencies because it leaves a number of terms undefined.
Rushed through by the government soon after terrorist attacks in Mumbai in 2008, Section 66A of the IT Act is deliberately vague and can lead to a variety of interpretations.
Embarrassed by protests against the arrests from civil rights groups and users of social networks, the federal government has said that the state police has misunderstood the purpose of the law.
Kapil Sibal, the country’s minister of communications, told a local TV channel that the government needs to “educate our enforcement authorities that this is not the way to use this particular Section.” Sibal said the government may need to add an explanation to Section 66A “which is something we need to debate to ensure that such things do not happen,” according to a transcript of the interview. He however did not seem to think the wording of the section was vague, stating that is the way laws are written, and it is up to courts to interpret.