Tamil Nadu cartoonist G Bala arrested: for penning ‘controversial’ caricature
A Tirunelveli Police team on Sunday picked up G. Bala (36), a cartoonist, who was charged with defaming the Chief Minister, the Tirunelveli Collector and the City Commissioner of Police by representing them in an obscene way. The cartoonist has been charged under Section 67 of the Information Technology Act.
Against a backdrop of self-immolation deaths of four in a family at Tirunelveli Collectorate on October 23 allegedly after being victimised by usurers, Mr. Bala was said to have created cartoons criticising the Chief Minister, the Tirunelveli Collector and the Tirunelveli City Commissioner of Police some days ago, posted them on his Facebook page and circulated them on various WhatsApp groups. Sources said the cartoonist was detained by the team in Chennai and being brought to Tirunelveli.
The post garnered over 38,000 shares on Facebook and was also widely shared on Twitter under the hashtag #NellaiFamilyAblaze.
This comes as a direct rebuttal to a recent incident, wherein a daily wage labourer’s family of four set themselves ablaze outside the collector’s office in Tirunelveli.
Isakimuthu and his wife Subbulakshmi were allegedly being harassed by a money lender even after they had paid the dues.
After six trips to the collector’s office with pleas of help and disappointed with police inaction, the hapless couple along with their two daughters- aged 2 and 4 committed suicide.
According to police, Muthu borrowed around Rs 1.40 lakh from a loan shark at a heavy rate of interest. Despite paying back Rs 2 lakh, the moneylender was pressing for more and threatened Muthu.
Muthu earlier petitioned the police and district collector to save his family, his efforts were in vain.
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