India: Press Council asks Marashtra chief minister for action against officials who used grounds of hurt religious sentiment for arrest of person who protested shutdown of Bombay after Bal Thackeray's death

From: The Times of India

Justice Katju reacts to TOI report, asks Prithviraj Chavan to probe Facebook user's arrest
By Himanshi Dhawan, TNN | Nov 19, 2012, 05.04 PM IST

NEW DELHI: Press Council chief Markandey Katju has asked Maharashtra CM Prithviraj Chavan to inquire in to the wrongful arrest of a woman for protesting against a bandh following Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray's death.

Reacting to a TOI report that had said that a woman had been arrested for protesting against the shut down in Mumbai on the occasion of Thackeray's death on social networking site facebook Katju said it was "absurd" to say that protest would hurt religious sentiment.

Katju said that the arrest was a criminal act since under sections 341 and 342 it is a crime to wrongfully arrest or wrongfully confine someone who has committed no crime.

"Hence if the facts reported are correct, I request you to immediately order the suspension, arrest, chargesheeting and criminal prosecution of the police personnel (however high they may be) who ordered as well as implemented the arrest of that woman, failing which I will deem it that you as chief minister are unable to run the state in a democratic manner as envisaged by the Constitution to which you have taken oath, and then the legal consequences will follow," he added.