Two years ago, in March 2015, the Supreme Court of India struck down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act because of its vagueness. The application of Section 67, however, seems to be creating similar confusion. On October 30, the Section – which outlaws publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form – was invoked by the Tamil Nadu to arrest a man in Virudhunagar district for allegedly making abusive comments against Prime Minister Narendra Modi – in a private Facebook chat. Nineteen-year-old S. Thirumurugan was picked up based on a complain from BJP district secretary K. Marimuthu, the recipient of the message, the Indian Express reported. He has been booked under Section 67 of the IT Act and Section 505 (public mischief) of the IPC.

“Both were Facebook friends. When Marimuthu sent Thirumurugan a meme on Facebook Messenger criticising Vijay’s controversial dialogues in the movie Mersal, Thirumurugan used filthy language in his reply referring to the PM. The conversation in English was photographed by Marimuthu and filed as a complaint,” Virudhunagar SP M. Rajarajan told the newspaper. The movie that the BJP leader was making fun of, Mersal, has a section that criticises the Goods and Services Tax.

According to BJP spokesperson Narayanan Tirupathi, Thirumurgan’s comments constituted abuse, not criticism. “Abusing is different from criticism. Abusing an individual with filthy words cannot be encouraged. BJP is welcome to any kind of criticism but unhealthy or filthy comments made by anybody are not welcome. We all live in a society. I myself am very active on social media, but I don’t encourage any unhealthy comments, and I never do that,” he told NDTV. The DMK and the AIADMK faction led by T.T.V. Dhinakaran criticised the move, saying it was a way to crush dissent, free speech and privacy.