Airtel's blunder? or slapdash Police?

whatever it was, it was the innocent that suffered as always. Bangalore Mirror has this very disturbing story about an unfortunate 26 year old from Bangalore. Quote:

"Pune. Police here have washed their hands off the wrongful detention of a 26 year old techie from Bangalore, blaming telecom major and Internet service provider Airtel for giving them incorrect information. The company has promised action. Lakshmana Kailash K was picked up from Bangalore on August 31 on the suspicion of having posted insulting image of Chatrapathi Shivaji on Internet networking site Orkut. He was brought to Pune and put behind bars. It was later found that he was innocent. The police will take up the matter with Airtel for providing misleading information that led to the wrongful arrest of Lakshmana, Assistant Commisioner of Police Netaji Shinde told IANS. "We did our investigations on the IP address provided to us by Airtel. It is not our fault and Lakshmana should take Airtel to court and not us" he said. An Airtel spokesperson said: "We are aware of this incident and deeply distressed by the severe inconvenience caused to the customer. We are fully co-operating with the authorities to provide all information in this regard and we are in touch with the customer. "We have robust internal process, which we review frequently to make them more stringent. We have conducted a thorough investigation of the matter and will take appropriate action." While media reports said Lakshmana was released only three weeks after the other suspects were arrested, police maintained that the techie was not held longer than necessary.

scary! If they go arresting just anyone and putting them into jail like this without in-depth verification, it goes to shows how bad the system is. Reminds me of the film [:http://imdb.com/title/tt0111161/|Shawshank Redemption]. And the fact that it could have been any Airtel user! Once into the Police muddle, the present Indian system is a corrupt labyrinth. It is high time that "we, the people" protest such carelessness. As soon as I read the article today, I called up Airtel customer care and logged a protest. Guess we all should do so - Cyber laws should be there to protect, not to create trouble for the innocent.

More read

• Times of India Coverage - "We made a mistake, so what?" says Police.
• [:http://www.bloggernews.net/111448|A blunder unpardonable]
• [:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Wrong_man_jailed_for_50_days/article…|Wrong man jailed for 50 days].