FIR Against Cartoonist Hemant Malviya In Madhya Pradesh (image-facebook/Hemant Malviya)

Madhya Pradesh: Hemant Malviya, a cartoonist from Madhya Pradesh, has been booked on Wednesday for allegedly sharing a cartoon against the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on social media platforms. The FIR has been filed in Lasudiya police station under sections 196 (promoting enmity between different groups), 299 (outraging religious feelings), 302 (acts of wounding religious feelings), 352 (breach of peace), 353 (2) (statements conducing to public mischief) BNS IT Act for posting objectionable, indecent cartoons on RSS volunteers.

According to the police, the complainant, advocate Vinay Joshi, a resident of Sudama Nagar area, while scrolling through his mobile, found Hemant Malviya’s account which had cartoons that hurt the sentiments of RSS followers. After filing the complaint, he argued that the timeline of Malviya depicts that the images were shared to deliberately invoke people against RSS.

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He said there were objectionable and indecent cartoons of PM Narendra Modi and the RSS. He further claimed that comments derogatory to his idol, Lord Shiva, were also made.

The complainant had also shared the saved recording and screenshots of the timeline and profile details on a pen drive to the police.

In a Facebook post, the cartoonist himself had said that he is unaware on the basis of which cartoon the FIR had been filed.

Sharing the information regarding several sections charged against him, he wrote in the post, “Yesterday a friend had accidentally put my name in place of Amit Malviya instead of FIR against BJP IT cell operator Amit Malviya, which I had shared it as a joke myself, but today it is not a joke, it is true,….”

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Freedom of expression, whether through speech or political cartoons, continues to come under attack. The recent case of Ali Khan Mahmudabad is yet another troubling reality; despite no clear indication of what was objectionable in his post, Mahmudabad was still remanded to judicial custody. The judiciary’s handling of the matter raises serious concerns about the protection of free expression.