Maharashtra: Man held for comments against Governor, rearrested for social media posts slamming CM, Dy CM

An officer from the Mumbai crime branch said they arrested Pradeep Bhalekar who had been on the run for the past few days.

Malad resident arrested over a Twitter post.

More than two months after he was arrested by the police in connection with a Twitter post against Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari, Pradeep Bhalekar, a Malad resident, was rearrested Thursday, but this time for his comments against Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, his deputy Devendra Fadnavis and BJP leader Narayan Rane.

An officer from the Mumbai crime branch said they arrested Bhalekar who had been on the run for the past few days. Bhalekar had posted on his Twitter account Tuesday that his family members were being harassed by the police so that they could trace him. Eventually, he was arrested by the crime branch (unit XII) and produced before the local metropolitan court which remanded him to police custody.

Sources said the new FIR was registered at the Samta Nagar police station. In the wee hours of Sunday, he posted a two-page handwritten letter on his Twitter handle addressing the high court and said he keeps getting booked in false cases and encounter threats for speaking against Shinde and Fadnavis.

A police official from the cyber police station (north region) came across the tweets while monitoring social media. He then filed a complaint with the Samta Nagar police station based on which they registered a FIR under Sections 153 A and B for promoting enmity between different groups, 500 (defamation), 504 (intentional insult) and 505 (2) (public mischief with intent to cause, or which is likely to cause, fear or alarm to the public) of the IPC.

Earlier, Bhalekar, who sympathises with a political party of the state, had taken potshots at the Governor following controversial comments made by Koshyari. At an event to name a chowk in Andheri, Koshyari had said, “Mumbai will have no money if the Gujaratis and Rajasthanis were to leave.”

On Bhalekar’s Twitter handle, there are several posts targeting BJP, especially BJP leader Narayan Rane.

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