Singer Abhijeet arrested for abusive tweet, released on bail: Mumbai Police

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, Aug 27, 2016: Singer Abhijeet Bhattacharya, who was named in an FIR filed by AAP leader Preeti Sharma Menon was arrested in July and later released on bail, said Mumbai Police.

Indian Express reported on Friday that the Mumbai Police confirmed the singer was arrested last month after a complaint against him for harassing a woman journalist on Twitter.

The reported quoted DCP (cyber) Sachin Patil as saying, “Abhijeet was arrested in July on the basis of the FIR against him for online abuse. However, since it was a bailable offence, he was given bail soon after the arrest.”

Menon, too, tweeted on Friday about the arrest and revealed that Abhijeet’s phone was confiscated and the tweets were deleted by Mumbai Police.

The FIR was lodged in July following a complaint filed by Menon at the Cyber Cell.

In her complaint, Menon said that she had tweeted to the Mumbai Police commissioner about Bhattacharya’s use of “obscene” language on social media towards a woman journalist. However, the singer responded to her tweet with indecent language, Menon said.

The case was registered under IPC section 500 (punishment for defamation) and 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of IPC and section 67 of the Information Technology Act, police said.

After the incident, Abhijeet had tweeted his frustration at the outrage and wrote, “I’m a man,a son,a dad,a bro trolled n abused by lady presstitute & her Paki frnds abused my nation whom to contact ?”

On Friday, he even complained that he is paying the price of “being a nationalist in Bollywood”.