Two held for “The Tiny Hut of a Proletarian Leader” campaign

Two held for e-mail campaign against Pinarayi

PNS | Thiruvanathapuram

The cyber cell of the Kerala Police on Sunday arrested two persons, KR Manoj of Bharanikkavu, Kayamkulam in Alappuzha district and Karthik of Ettumannoor in Kottayam district, for forwarding to others e-mails containing false information intended at defaming Pinarayi Vijayan, Kerala secretary of the CPI(M). The e-mail had carried the picture of a palatial house owned by an NRI industrialist, which was described in the mail as owned by Vijayan.

Manoj and Karthik were arrested for participating in the defamation campaign against Vijayan by forwarding the e-mail to others after editing the message and headlining the picture “The Tiny Hut of a Proletarian Leader”. Karthik had received the e-mail from a person named Dinesh Nair. However, the people who had launched the e-mail campaign originally were yet to be traced.

Vijayan had complained to the cyber cell after it came to his attention that an Intenet-based campaign was on to defame him by distributing through the Net the picture of a large house in Kadavallur near Kunnamkulam in Thrissur district owned by an NRI industrialist in the Gulf by projecting it as the CPI(M) leader’s own house.

Cyber Cell DySP J Sukamara Pillai said that the duo was arrested for propagating the e-mail with malicious changes intended at defaming Pinarayi. He said the investigation was progressing and the original senders of the e-mail would be caught soon. The arrest was under Section 66 A of the IT Act.

Controversy over house had been following Pinarayi Vijayan for the past several years. Several reports had appeared in the media some time ago about a house he was then constructing in Pinarayi, his village near Thalassery in Kannur. There were allegations that this house of the proletarian party leader would cost millions of rupees.

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