FIR lodged against Facebook and user over anti-Gita content

The Bhagavad Gita has been a bone of contention, since the Russian court has been trying to ban the text, calling it "extremist literature". Now, a Facebook user has filed an FIR against another user for writing malicious content about the holy Hindu text online. According to dailybhaskar, Nutan Thakur, a social activist from Lucknow, has filed an FIR against CI Chumbar, a resident of Jalandhar. Kumar wrote in her FIR that Chumbar claims to be the Editor-In-Chief of a Punjab daily newspaper. Thakur claims that Chumbar wrote on Facebook that people should burn the Bhagavad Gita because the scripture contains derogatory references to women. Kumar said that these comments were enough to incite communal riots and anger.

Facebook's facing flak for negative comments

The FIR was filed against Chumbar and Facebook itself under section 153 (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of communities and other grounds), 153 A (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national-integration), 153 B (public nuisance), 290 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), 504 (criminal intimidation) 506 and 66 A IT Act (using Information Technology for these purposes).

"Through abusive language, the person has been denting the image of the Hindu Gods. More so, the networking site also turned a blind eye and did not initiate any kind of action. The Facebook is equally responsible in the crime by encouraging such acts by not taking any action against the people involved in such mischieves," Thakur said. Thakur's husband has previously filed an FIR against Facebook and a user for allegedly spreading hate messages about Gandhi.

This comes on the heels of Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Kapil Sibal's request to the social networks to pre-screen content that could be hateful, derogatory or discriminatory. It seems Facebook's reporting system isn't enough for some people and FIRs are necessary.