Udupi man held in Saudia Arabia for insulting post on Prince Salman

BENGALURU/UDUPI: A 32-year-old man from Karnataka working in Saudi Arabia has been arrested for allegedly posting derogatory messages on Facebook against crown prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammad bin Salman and a community.
The man, Harish, a resident of Goyadibettu, Bijadi village of Kundapur taluk, Udupi district, worked as an air-conditioning technician for a company in Dammam, capital of Saudi Arabia's eastern provice.On Saturday, Harish allegedly uploaded a few photos and the derogatory comments. After the post went viral, the Saudi authorities took Harish into their custody.
A few minutes after the arrest, a video showing Harish pleading to be forgiven by Muslims went viral. Though TOI cannot independently confirm the veracity of the video, he is heard saying, "I have faced a lot of problems before I came here, and I request you to forgive me this time."
An online post by Harish's employers said they have terminated Harish and alerted the Saudi authorities for further action.
Meanwhile, Lavanya Ballal, the national social media co-ordinator of All India Women's Congress, has requested secretary of labour department P Manivannan to help Harish.
Ballal tweeted, "This man from Kundapura working in Dammam, has been attested for posting derogatory comments and about the Saudi prince and about Ram Mandir in Mecca of FB. Can we please help him sir @mani1972ias . Poor guys have been misled by the RSS."

"I won't go into who misled him etc. He is a Kannadiga and we should help him. The laws there are very strict and extremely difficult to help him. But, let's do our best. I already sounded my friend in the IFS. Will tag @MEAIndia and also work on this," Manivannan responded.
In the next few minutes, Manivannan tweeted again that he was in contact with DB Bhati, a counsellor at the Indian embassy in Riyadh. Manivannan said, "They are taking up (the issue) through diplomatic channels with utmost seriousness. However, it's going to be a long process. Let's hope for the best."

Harish Bangera's wife Sumana M, who lives in Udupi, said that a fake Facebook account was behind all this. She has already approached the Udupi superintendent office seeking help to get her husband released.
Speaking to TOI, Sumana said, "On December 19, he shared a video from other's post on Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) on Facebook. Following this, some people threatened him after which he issued a video of his apology. The same night he also deactivated his Facebook account."
Suman claimed that on December 20, someone created a fake Facebook account in her husband's name and posted derogatory content. "It went viral and drew lot of criticism from the public. On December 21, I alerted the Cyber Economic and Narcotics (CEN) police in Udupi and requested them to delete the fake account. But by then, my husband was arrested. The fake ID also got deleted on Sunday night," she added.
As per police sources, the fake ID has been created from Kasargod. He has been operating a Facebook account by the name 'Harish Bangera S' for the last five years. The fake ID is by the name 'Harish Bangera'. Getting my husband's information (update) is difficult. Currently, one of his friend is updating us about the developments there. Harish could only speak Hindi and Kannada and the police there speaks only English and Arabic. This has created a huge hurdle in the investigation. We want him back safe" she added.