Derogatory content: Five cases booked in Hyderabad

The persons who were served notices are Sri Pratap, Shahshank and Trishank Sharma while Sunil Kanugolu was not available for examination.

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad police took into custody three persons for allegedly posting morphed and derogatory videos of Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao, his family members and other politicians. All of them were issued a 41 CrPC notice and asked to submit an explanation.

Joint Commissioner of Police (Detective Department) Dr. Gajarao Bhupal said the three persons were picked up following a raid on the office of Congress party’s political strategist Sunil Kanugolu. “All of them confessed they were working for him and at the behest of their supervisors, were posting abusive and derogatory content on social media platforms,” he said.

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The persons who were served notices are Sri Pratap, Shahshank and Trishank Sharma while Sunil Kanugolu was not available for examination.

On Tuesday night, the police had raided the office of Mindshare United Foundation, Madhapur, and seized computers, laptops and mobile phones.

Dr. Gajarao Bhupal said all legal procedures were followed and FIRs registered. “The workers at the office were using fake IP address to upload and share the content on social media platforms. With the help of latest cybercrime detection tools we tracked down the office and on raiding the place, came to know that it belongs to Sunil Konugolu. We are not aware if the office is linked to Congress party, there is no board anywhere,” he said.

The police said abusive content was posted with different names on social media platforms. “They were doing it for the last six months and cases were registered with Hyderabad Cybercrime, Gopalapuram, Monda Market, Chandrayangutta and Amberpet police stations,” he said.

In a democracy, opposition over political views was acceptable and healthy but personal attacks on any persons including a woman, does not come under criticism, Dr. Gajarao Bhupal said. “It is outright abuse and attracts legal provisions. If anyone is expressing his so called views then they should not hide their identities using proxies,” he said.

In many cases, the trouble mongers were using false identities to run the pages or channels and posting abusive or derogatory content. In certain instances it was being done from foreign countries, he added.