Two Women Arrested For Facebook Post on Mumbai Shutdown

On November 19, 2012, two young women from Palghar, Maharashtra, were arrested for a Facebook post. Shaheen Dhada, 21, had written that Mumbai should not have shut down for Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray's funeral the previous day. Her friend Renu Srinivasan, also 21, had clicked "like" on the post. Both were taken into custody.

What did the post say?

Dhada wrote that people like Thackeray are born and die every day and a city should not observe a bandh for that; that respect is earned and cannot be forced; and that Mumbai had shut down out of fear, not respect. Thackeray, the Shiv Sena founder, had died on November 17 at 86, and an estimated million mourners had filled Mumbai's streets for his funeral on November 18, bringing the city to a halt.

Why were they arrested?

A local Shiv Sena leader, Bhushan Sankhe, complained to the Palghar police, and the two women were booked under IPC Sections 295A and 505(2) along with Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, the provision that criminalized "grossly offensive" online messages. A court sent them to 14 days' judicial custody; they were granted bail after furnishing bonds.

The night before the arrests, a mob of Shiv Sena workers vandalized the orthopaedic hospital belonging to Dhada's uncle, despite the fact that she had already removed the post and apologized.

What was the fallout?

The arrests triggered nationwide outrage. The Maharashtra government ordered a high-level inquiry and suspended two police officers: Thane rural SP Ravindra Sengaonkar and Palghar senior inspector Shrikant Pingle. In December 2012, police filed a closure report and all charges against the two women were dropped.

The case became one of the defining examples of Section 66A's misuse. In 2015, the Supreme Court of India struck down Section 66A in the Shreya Singhal judgment, calling it unconstitutional and a violation of free speech.

FAQ

Who complained against them? Bhushan Sankhe, a local Shiv Sena shakha pramukh in Palghar.

What is Section 66A? A provision of the IT Act, 2000, that punished sending "grossly offensive" or "menacing" messages online. It was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2015.

Did the police face consequences? Two officers were suspended over the arrests. The Shiv Sena called a bandh in Palghar on November 28 to protest the suspensions.

Were the women compensated? The National Human Rights Commission at one point ordered Rs 50,000 each in compensation, but later withdrew the order after the state defended the arrests.

The takeaway

A Facebook status and a "like" put two 21-year-olds in jail and cost two police officers their posts. The Palghar case is still taught as the moment India learned, the hard way, that free speech online needs the same protection as free speech anywhere else.