New Delhi: A 21-year-old youth in Madhya Pradesh is facing sedition charges and has been in jail for the past five months because of some "objectionable" WhatsApp message being allegedly forwarded by him in a group. However, according to his family, he is suffering as he was made a "default admin" only after the original administrators had left the group. But according to the Police, the man was the administrator of the WhatsApp group, when a complaint was filed. The cops said that they have taken action according to the evidence they found against the accused.


The man identified as Junaid Mev was a part of a WhatsApp group named 'S@nsk@ri K@mine', in which some "objectionable" content was circulated. Family members of Junaid have claimed that he became ‘default admin’ of the group after some other members of the group left it soon after the post was shared. According to Junaid's kins, the others who had left the group were let off by the police.


Junaid a B Sc student, is a resident of Talen town in Rajgarh district. He was booked in February for allegedly posted some inflammatory content in the group. Police had arrested him on sedition charge and sent them to jail. He was also booked under Section IPC 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings), 153, 124A, IPC 67A. He also missed his exams as the court has denied bail to him due to serious sedition charges against him.

The police meanwhile have denied the allegations of deliberately letting off other persons. It has been reported that the matter has been referred to the cyber cell.

Recently, there have been multiple incidents of violence linked to messages which are circulated on WhatsApp groups. With at least 200 million monthly active users in the country, WhatsApp often finds itself at the centre of these arrests.