Vicious web

A seemingly innocuous social media post turned Ketaki Chitale’s life upside down

- POOJA BIRAIA JAISWAL

KETAKI CHITALE HAD just finished her lunch when a few policemen barged into her house on May 14. “The police came in, handcuffed me and asked me to accompany them without any explanation,” said Chitale, an actress and activist. She was not allowed to make any calls, not even to her parents who lived a few kilometres away from her rented apartment in Kalamboli, Navi Mumbai.

Her crime? She shared a post on Facebook the previous day, a poem on a fictional character holding a public office called Pawara. It had already been shared at least a hundred times and had some 4,000 reactions. About four hours after she shared it, an FIR was registered. In a span of 48 hours, 21 more FIRs were registered, her house was raided, and her phone and laptop were confiscated. She spent the next 41 days in jail.

The ordeal continued even after she got out on bail, as she was “misconstrued, misquoted and misunderstood”. Many news channels reported that she was molested by policemen, and while in prison. “I was not molested by the police at any point, neither inside the prison nor outside,” she said. “It was the mob that molested me while I was being taken from Kalamboli police station to the Thane police station. I was touched inappropriately and roughed up by the mob.”