IG terms gangsters’ offensive FB posts freedom of speech

Nikhil Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, May 2

The Facebook page of notorious gangster Sukha Kahlon, who was killed in police custody near Phagwara in January last year, is still being flooded with threatening posts aimed at rival gangster Vicky Gounder and the police.

A similar trend is seen following the murder of gangster Jaswinder Singh Rocky. His supporters have been openly issuing threats to Gounder and Jai Pal who have claimed the responsibility of killing Rocky.

Interestingly, the IG (Cyber Crime), PK Sinha, sees these threats and counter-threats as freedom of expression.

Jai and Gounder were booked in the Sukha murder case, but the police failed to nab them even one year after the crime. After Sukha’s murder, the police had claimed that those operating the FB pages in the name of Sukha had been identified. But even after a year, these pages are still flooded with messages by the slain gangster’s supporters.

Certain posts even carried threats to Inspector Inderjit Singh and Sub-Inspector Shiv Kumar, besides appeals to supporters to take revenge.

Sinha said if gangsters were operating FB pages and posting derogatory material against the police and threatening their rivals, they could not do anything. Asked why these pages are not blocked, he said in a democratic country, the police could not deny freedom of expression to citizens or issue any gag orders.