Acting swiftly, Punjab Police on Sunday arrested one person for uploading the video clip of IAS officer Kahan Singh Pannu’s assault on the social networking website within two days of filing the complaint.
Punjab police Cyber Crime Cell, Mohali, has arrested one Gurvinder Singh alias Baba Panesar, a ludhiana-resident on Sunday. The accused was produced before the Mohali Court, and was given four-day remanded in the police custody.
Further investigations are in progress, said the police officials. Five days after he was assaulted by the pilgrims in Uttarakhand and the video clip was later uploaded on the cyber space, Pannu registered a complaint under Sections 66-A of the Information Technology (IT) Act for sending offensive or false messages.
Besides, Sections 295-A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for injuring or defiling place of worship, with intent to insult the religion of any class has also been revoked, along with 298 for uttering words, etc with deliberate intent to wound religious feelings, 500 for defamation, and 120-B for criminal conspiracy.
All along been indicating at the “conspiracy” in attack on him, the Director General of School Education Pannu has already made it clear that he would go ahead to file the complaint if asked to do so.
Pannu, in his complaint, has stated that under a deep-rooted conspiracy, some mischievous persons by uploading the video of his manhandling at Gobind Ghat on social networking sites — You Tube and Facebook — have defamed and insulted him in the society and hurt religious sentiments.
Pannu had pointed out that “certain things” indicated that the assault was pre-planned. “The man who captured the incident on his video camera had started focusing on me even before I had approached the pilgrims who attacked me without any provocation,” said Pannu.
He said the clip did not focus on any attacker, raising suspicion. “I am amazed as to how the attackers stranded at Gobind Ghat for days were able to charge their video camera and upload the clip on a popular site,” said Pannu.
Pannu has already submitted a detailed report to Punjab Chief Secretary Rakesh Singh on the incident in which a group of Sikh pilgrims in Uttarakhand had manhandled him on Sunday when he was supervising the relief and rescue operations in the flood-ravaged hill state.