Forced apology for Fb post; SP should have taken action says Cong leader

Bengaluru: Superintendent of police should have taken action against the ABVP workers who allegedly forced a lecturer to apologise for a purported anti-national Facebook post said Senior Congress leader B K Chandrashekar.

Speaking on the issue he said “I am disturbed by the statement of the (Vijayapura) superintendent of police that he would be able to initiate action only upon receipt of a complaint. It was perfectly open for him – indeed he was duty-bound – to ask the police who were present on the spot to prepare an FIR under IPC Sections 141-149 dealing with offences against public tranquillity’  as well as under Section 340 dealing with wrongful confinement.”

He further said that he appreciates Home Minister M B Patil’s directive to the Vijayapura police to take action against ABVP workers who allegedly forced a lecturer to apologise for a purported anti-national Facebook post.

Sandeep Wathar, Lecturer at Dr PG Halakatti Engineering College run by BLDE Association that MD Patil heads, using certain derogatory words in his Facebook post on Saturday, March 2 condemned the right-wing groups for their warmongering.

Picking up his post, members of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad had stormed the Dr P G Halakatti Engineering College, run by Bijapur Lingayat Development Education Society, where he teaches. The activists made Wathar kneel down for his ‘anti-India’ post on a social media platform at Vijayapura and forced him to seek an apology with folded hands and head down.