Hyderabad: In a strange effort to crack down on marijuana users and vendors in the city, Hyderabad police worked with excise officials on Thursday and randomly checked commuter phones in Dhoolpet.
The area in the past has been famous for sale narcotics.
Officials seem to look for WhatsApp groups and other social media information that can connect individuals to marijuana supplies.
In the process, the police clearly violated the command of the Supreme Court about privacy and even affixed to Twitter because their search was too excited.
The drive has come when the Chief of Telangana K Chandrasekhar Rao has declared an all-out war in marijuana trade in the state.
He has directed the police and excise officials to make Telangana a medical-free condition.
Hyderabad’s senior police officer defended their steps saying they featured cellphones only people who moved suspiciously in the area.
‘The police have no right to check the phone, they find it difficult to defend their actions after the video drive checks viral.
In the video, uniformed personnel were seen randomly stopping passengers in the autorickshaw and commuters on two wheels.
They were asked to hand over their cellphone.
Officials then through a call list and chat on social media.
In chat, they apparently run a search by entering keywords such as ‘marijuana’ and ‘weeds’, the source said.
Srinivas Kodali, an independent researcher on data and privacy, tweeted that Hyderabad police violate the basic rights of citizens and have no right to inspect public phones randomly.
“It is illegal to check cellphones or whatsapp citizens’ chat.
This is only an invasion of the privacy of citizens,” said Khaja Aijazuddin, a leading high court lawyer.
“At KS 2017 KS Puttaswamy vs Union of India, the Supreme Court stated that the privacy was the final expression of the sanctity of the individual” Commissioner with Hyderabad from Police AR Srinivas said it was not true to say that their people examined all those who were moving on the road.
“We checked the cellphone only those we found suspicious and who did not provide convincing answers,” he said.
Police Commissioner Hyderabad Anjani Kumar initially told Ti that no one complained to him about his violated privacy.
“Based on random videos, it is not possible for us to verify authenticity.” Then during the press conference, Kumar did not comment on the video, but said, “In the case of a large violation, police officials will examine all the items confiscated at the crime scene, which can be a laptop, iPad or cellphone.
In certain cases, and to find out the Nexus detail And the existence of criminals fled, police officials will examine the details on the phone.
“Personnel who are in uniform are seen randomly stopping passengers in Autos and commuters on two wheels.
They were asked to hand over their cellphone.
Officials then through a list of calls and chat on social media