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This is a shocking news which appeared in the Times of India: Wrong man in jail for 50 days on cyber charge

MUMBAI: In the early hours of August 31, Lakshmana Kailash K was asleep at his home in Bangalore.

He was woken up by eight policemen from Pune who came knocking on his door and waved the Information Technology Act, 2000, in his sleepy, terrified face.

Get dressed, he was told, we are taking you to Pune for having defamed Shivaji. Lakshmana protested that he didn't know anyone called Shivaji.

The policemen said that they were talking about Chhatrapati Shivaji and that an insulting picture of him had been uploaded on the Internet networking site, Orkut. The trail had led them to his computer in Bangalore.

Turning a deaf ear to his protests, the cops took him to Pune and put him behind bars. Along the way, the 26-year-old Lakshmana, who works with HCL, learned that what he was being arrested for was a case that had triggered riots in Pune in November 2006.

Political parties had forcibly closed cybercafes and gone on a rampage over the posting of the illustration which had poked fun at Shivaji.

Lakshmana was released after spending 50 days in jail, three weeks after the cops claimed to have nabbed the "real culprits".

I checked what the IT Act 2000 says.

CHAPTER XI: OFFENCES
65. Tampering with computer source documents
66. Hacking with computer system
67. Publishing of information which is obscene in electronic form
68. Power of Controller to give directions
69. Directions of Controller to a subscriber to extend facilitates to decrypt
information
70. Protected system
71. Penalty for misrepresentation
72. Penalty for breach of confidentiality and privacy
73. Penalty for publishing Digital Signature Certificate false in certain particulars
74. Publication for fraudulent purpose
75. Act to apply for offence or contravention committed outside India
76. Confiscation
77. Penalties or confiscation not to interfere with other punishments
78. Power to investigate offences

What could be interest to the Law Enforcement Officers would have been this section:

67. Publishing of information which is obscene in electronic form Whoever publishes or transmits or causes to be published in the electronic form, any material which is lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest or if its effect is such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstance, to read see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it, shall be punished on first conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years and with fine which may extend to one lakh rupees and in the event of a second or subsequent conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years and also with fine which may extend to two lakh rupees.

If a person posts a cartoon/ caricature to make fun - his intention is not to "trigger riots." There are enough social evils in India, which is not covered under the radar of -the police department or the 'morally superior political parties.'

The stinking moral hypocrisy of the politicians and the system in general is way too apparent.

"Any material which is lascivious or appeals to the prurient* interest [*having or showing too much interest in things connected with sex] or if its effect is such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstance, to read see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it, shall be punished..."

This is a Law? The Indian parliament passed this? What a crying shame!

So what are the sculptures in Kahjuraho telling us? If the law is clear on prurient interest
the temples and other historical structures of Khajuraho have to be demolished (with government sanction) like what the Taliban did to the Buddhas in Bamiyan.

No, we Indians are not from the dark age, we do believe that the Indians are civilized.

What happened to Lakshmana is a national shame. A clear breakdown of the legal structures in India. If the law is incompetent or ambiguous, it has to be amended immediately.

No Lakshmana must be behind bars without the due process of a trial. We Indians have constantly challenged the status quo, questioned myths that are paraded as history, lies masqueraded as truth.

If the Indian legal system fails even one citizen; the system has to be reformed and overhauled. No Indian should be a victim of an incompetent law; collateral damage cannot be accepted.

I wonder how come Lakshmana wasn't produced in a court. How can the cops keep a man as an undertrial for 50 days? How come he wasn't produced in front of a magistrate in Bangalore - who could have given him a bail.

How come there are two Indias? A poor man's India and a rich man's India?

More than any other reforms, we need political and legal reforms in India.

And that day is not too far away.