The Madras High Court on Tuesday quashed a first information report filed against YouTuber Maridhas for a tweet on the helicopter crash in which Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, his wife Madhulika Rawat and 11 others were killed, The Hindu reported.
The Tamil Nadu Police had registered a case against Maridhas under Sections 124A (sedition), 505(2) (statements which are alarming, false intention to create disharmony) and 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot) of the Indian Penal Code.
Justice GR Swaminathan of the Madurai bench said that none of the offences were made out in the case.
In the tweet, which has now been deleted, Maridhas had claimed that Tamil Nadu was “turning into another Kashmir under DMK [Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam] rule”, according to the website. He also claimed that it was possible “for any kind of plot to be hatched here [in Tamil Nadu].”
The YouTuber, in another tweet which is still available, accused DMK supporters of “mocking the death of an army commander in an accident”, according to a translation of the tweet by The News Minute.
Maridhas, in his petition before the High Court, said that he wanted the government to take action against people who “smile on the death of the Chief of the Defence Staff”, according to The Hindu.
He said that the government took action against him instead of acting against such persons.
The YouTuber will not be released immediately as he has been sent to judicial custody in a separate case till December 27, The Indian Express reported. In the other case, he has been accused of forging an email from a senior editor and trying to incite communal disturbances.
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