Thiruvananthapuram, March 27 The Election Commission on Friday claimed that the entire video of Congress leader V D Satheesan's interview to a TV channel was removed by mistake, as the police only sought removal of some comments linked to the video.
Kerala Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Rathan U Kelkar said that the police had asked Meta, which manages various social media platforms including Facebook, to remove the comments below the video.
"However, they mistakenly removed the entire video. That is the factual position," he said.
Meanwhile, Satheesan alleged that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was behind the removal of the video as he was afraid of his interview.
"He (CM) is afraid. All autocrats are governed by fear. Vijayan is a coward who is afraid of an interview," he told reporters.
On the other hand, Vijayan said that he is no longer directly connected with the steps being taken by the police since the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) came into effect.
He said he is not aware of the circumstances behind the police action in the matter and that details can be sought from the State Police Chief.
Kelkar said that once the issue was brought to the attention of the authorities, including the Election Commission (EC), Meta was immediately contacted by the police and the Director General (media) of the poll panel to restore the video.
"We surely believe that the video will be restored soon enough. Meta has a lot of formalities to go through for restoring a video that was once removed," he said, in response to reporters' queries at a press conference here.
"We expect the issue to be resolved quickly," he added.
Kelkar further said that the police has powers under the Information Technology Act and intermediary rules framed under it to do a lot of things in such matters.
He also said that cyber patrolling was being carried out by dedicated teams in his office as well as that of the District Collectors and District Police Chiefs in the state.
If such monitoring reveals any obscene comments or remarks against the MCC or activities that vitiate the EC's work, then the police have the powers to intervene in those situations, the CEO said.
If there are any complaints against the steps taken by the police, there is a mechanism in place to deal with those as well, he said.
On being asked how many videos have been removed by the police on the grounds of obscenity or violation of MCC, he said that the exact figures will have to be collected from the law and order agency.