Bhopal: Junaid Khan a Bsc student is in jail for the past five months on charges of sedition and for being a WhatsApp admin of a group that has forwarded some “objectionable” evidence.
Junaid is a 21-year-old student from MP’s Rajgarh and a resident of Talen Town was reportedly arrested on February 14, after the group admin exited the group sharing the objectionable content on the group which made Junaid admin by default.
But the Police claims they arrested Junaid on the evidence they had against him. They booked Junaid under the IT Act and IPC Section 124 A (sedition).
Junaid was a member of a WhatsApp group in which Irfan was the admin. But after posting some objectionable forward he allegedly exited the group making Junaid Admin by default.
Some locals in the area registered a complaint with the Talen police station against Irfan and the admin(Junaid).
“Junaid was a member of the group, but not the admin. When the matter came to light, he was in Ratlam on family work. It was then that the admin left the group and another member became an admin by default. But he, too, quit. Junaid became group admin by default. But he was not the admin when the post was originally shared,” Farrukh Khan, Junaid’s cousin said.
Junaid’s family, on the other hand, says Junaid was never the admin of the group but was made by default when the other admins exited the group and when the forward was shared.
The BSc student was also denied bail to write his examinations. “We approached senior police officers and complained with the CM Helpline but to no avail. No one listened to us that he was not the admin when the message was posted,” Farukh claimed.
Pachore police station in-charge, Yuvraj Singh Chouhan who investigated the case five months back said, “Junaid’s family members did not say this when he was arrested. Now, after the challan has been put up in court, they say he was the ‘default admin’. If they have any evidence, they should produce it in court. Irfan, too, was arrested and when the matter came to our cognisance, Junaid was the admin of the group. There was no evidence or any other way to ascertain at that time who was the admin of the group when the post was shared by Irfan. We filed the challan on the basis of the evidence available with us.”
“We are verifying whether other people were also admins of the same group. The family hasn’t told us that Junaid had become default admin. Rather, they have complained that some other people were also admins of the group at that time,” said Rajgarh supreintendent of police Simala Prasad.