Advocate held for 'derogatory' post against Jayalalithaa

Udhagamandalam: Close on the heels of the controversial arrest of a singer for criticising Jayalalithaa, an advocate here was arrested today on charges of uploading a post on a social networking site 'derogative' of the Chief Minister.

Advocate B C Sridhar was arrested in the wee hours on a complaint from a local AIADMK functionary that he had allegedly posted a picture of a model with the morphed face of Jayalalithaa on November 10, Deepavali day, police said.

AIADMK Town Secretary Devaraj in his complaint said the post in which the model was shown holding a liquor bottle and greeting the people on Deepavali had gone viral and affected the prestige of the Chief Minister.

In pre-dawn action, police went to the house of Sridhar here, arrested and produced him before Gudalur Judge (Vacation Judge) around 2.30 AM, police said.

Police have registered cases against Sridhar under the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Women Harassment Act and Information and Technology Act.

The advocate was remanded to judicial custody and lodged in the Sub-Jail here around 4 AM, police said.

The state police had last month arrested 54-year old ultra-Left propagandist singer Kovan on charge of sedition for allegedly uploading "defamatory" electronic content against Jayalalithaa and "disturbing" public peace.

The allegedly defamatory content, centred over the liquor vending policy of the state government, in the form of videos were uploaded on some Tamil websites and also went viral on messaging mediums like Whatsapp.