A 24-year-old cricketer who hails from Shahjahanpur had never thought even in his conscious mind that a heated argument with his close friends on a Whatsapp group would land him in jail.
Following India’s humiliating loss to arch-rivals Pakistan in the final of Champions Trophy on June 18, Mohammad Nayeem got into an argument with his friends on Whatsapp and wrote that “the Indian team deliberately lost that match as it was already fixed. The Indian team had taken money to lose this match,” he said.
The following day an FIR was registered against him and two of his friends at the Chowk Kotwali Police Station Under Section 66 A of the IT Act. Police filed a charge sheet against the accused when the matter came up for the hearing in the court of the chief judicial magistrate on 31st October, and Nayeem was subsequently sent to district jail.
The incident was reported to the police by Rajkamal Vajpai who is a local cricketer attached to the BJP Yuva Morcha. Vajpai who was himself part of that Whatsapp group produced the screenshots of those messages to police chief KB Singh who later ordered for an FIR on the matter. Nayeem was initially booked on the charges of the IT Act, but the police further added IPC sections 295 A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings) and 504 (insult with intent to provoke breach of peace).
Chowk Kotwali Police Station Officer in Charge Ashoke Pal said:
“Based on the evidence we got during the course of investigation, additional charges under IPC sections were slapped against the accused.”
Nayeem was granted bail after the cops submitted to the court that the victim has a clean record and is expected to be free on Friday. Nayeem’s lawyer Kamlesh Kumar said:
“The court has granted bail to my client as he has not harmed anyone and doesn’t have any criminal history.”