Bhopal: Does your WhatsApp group have a new member? Someone most people don't seem to recognise? It may be a cop, checking in to see that no one is posting 'provocative' messages.This new snooping began around 15 days ago, say sources. "Three persons have been booked by Jehangirabad and Koh-e-Fiza police for posting communally sensitive messages on WhatsApp groups," said ASP (zone 1) Dharamveer Singh, adding that 27 such social media groups have been identified where provocative and offensive messages were posted. A dozen people have been showcaused and at least five made to sign undertakings that they will not post communal or provocative messages on social media. And all in the last two weeks.The undertaking, to be submitted to the SDM, is for a duration of six months. "If anyone is found violating the undertaking, they can be put behind bars for up to 11 months by the district administration," said an officer.District collector Sudam Khade said prohibitory orders have been invoked under CrPC 144 against posting communal or provocative messages. Anyone can be booked if the message is found to have the potential of disturbing peace and tranquillity. "Police have their methods of extracting such messages, and taking legal action against the perpetrators to prevent any untoward incident," he added.Criminal lawyer Ravikant Patidar said, "Action taken by police is legally correct as they are booking the accused only after the collector has issued a prohibitory order under CRPC 144 against provocative messages." The major challenge is that the prohibitory orders are valid for just two months and can be renewed by the collector only twice for two months each, he pointed out. "So this order will not be valid beyond six months, therefore there is need for a law to check the menace," he said.ASP Singh said, "Since communicating a provocative message on WhatsApp is very easy, it was decided to keep a watch on social media first. People do not read a message properly before forwarding it without verifying them. Due to this, provocative messages often led to tension between communities. Since there is no strong legislation on internal security, we started taking legal action in under IPC 188 (disobedience of order duly promulgated by a public servant.)"Asked about the modus operandi of the monitoring, he said, "The entire police force is helping us by informing of any of such incident that takes place in a group in which they are added. Cops are connected to us in a group and they pass on the group's name and member's name to us along with screen shots of the message as proof."At first, police issue a notice against the group admin and wait for his or her reply. "If the reply doesn't seem genuine, then action is taken against him or her. If, on the other hand, the group admin wants to take action against any member who posted such messages, then the admin becomes the complainant and the member is booked accordingly," Singh said, adding, "We are soon going to start monitoring Facebook posts too as it has a wide reach."Some WhatsApp groups like 'Media ke Sathi', 'Desh Bachao Abhiyan', 'Today news.com' and 'Tahalike' have been shut after the cops started keeping a watch.Abbas Ahmed, a WhatsApp group member, said: "Due to sudden police action in groups, the admin of my WhatsApp group announced that he is shutting it down." Vipul Dubey, a member of another group, said, "After the monitoring, our group admin first announced that it would be shut down. But he removed a few members and restarted the group, saying that all the cops had been removed."

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