A 22-year-old IT professional Rahul Krishnakumar Vaid has been arrested by Pune Police for writing vulgar posts in an orkut community called “I hate Sonia Gandhi.” He is charged under section 292 of Indian Penal Code and section 67 of the Information Technology Act. However, the owner of the community can’t be proved guilty as per the law. The Pune police said that hating Sonia Gandhi is a personal opinion of the person who formed the community and having a personal opinion about someone is not an offense as per the law but writing vulgar messages on communities or social forums is definitely a crime.

During investigations, Pune police requested Google for details about the person who formed the forum and circulated the obscene content. It was known that the vulgar message about Sonia Gandhi was circulated through one email address, finally the owner of the email, Rahul was traced and arrested. For this crime, he could be imprisoned for up to five years and may have to pay a fine up to one lakh rupees.

Rahul told the police that he posted the message because he hated Sonia Gandhi and was not aware that it would lead to a big controversy. But I don’t think Rahul has done any crime. We are living in a free nation. We have right to express our opinions. I would like to request Mrs. Sonia Gandhi to look into this matter. She is a very kind lady and I am sure she will help Rahul to save his career and life. But the moral of the story is that “never post such obscene and vulgar messages on social networking websites, particularly against politically powerful people.”