14 DAY TRIAL // Indian law enforcement authorities have taken down mobile Internet services for the Gujarat Indian province, after violent street protests following the detention of local politician Hardik Patel.
Mr. Patel is a representative of the local Patidar community, a caste found primarily in the state of Gujarat, India.
Starting July 2015, the Partidar community led by Mr. Patel held a series of street protests seeking inclusion in the Other Backward Class (OBC), a social status which will help members of the Partidar community gain easier access to education and government jobs.
Mr. Patel was detained by local police Tuesday night after giving a speech at a rally in Ahmedabad. His arrest started a more violent protest, which spread amongst the community with the help of the WhatsApp IM application.
Authorities first took down WhatsApp, which was used to rally protesters
Following multiple agitation campaigns and calls to violence via WhatsApp, the police decided to take down mobile Internet services for most of the region, which services over 63 million users.
While at first only WhatsApp was targeted in the takedown, the entire mobile Internet infrastructure was shut down, probably to avoid protesters switching to Facebook, Twitter, or other similar social networks.
Twitter especially has a history of being the main catalyst and channel of communication in many protests and revolutions around the globe, being widely used in the past in Iran, Turkey, Venezuela, and the Arab Spring North African nations.
Despite taking down local mobile Internet connections, the protest went on and turned violent, paramilitary forces being deployed across the state, and a curfew being put in place in Ahmedabad.
A police officer said mobile Internet services would be turned back on only after the situation has calmed down and everything returns to normal, as local Indian news outlet NDTV reports.