Anand Manjunath Naik is a 34-year-old bakery owner in the Moodigere taluka of Chikmagalur district in Karnataka and also a member of the local WhatsApp group called ‘The Balse Boys’. In May 2017, he was offended when two members of the group uploaded a morphed photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP leader from the region, BS Yeddyurappa. A complaint to the police ensured that cases were filed against not just the two, who posted what Naik felt was an offensive image — "how can you make fun of the PM?" — but also, Krishna Sannathaman, the admin of the group with nearly 250 members. While till a few months ago, the admin’s own role in this offence may have been considered negligible, the atmosphere today is starkly different.

On July 1, five persons were lynched by villagers of Rainpada, in the Dhule district of Maharashtra, on suspicion of being child-lifters. The latest in a series of such cases see box: Spreading Like Wildfire, the five — who had just arrived in the area on a state transport bus — were beaten to death after being seen speaking to a young girl. The villagers, fuelled by rumours floating on WhatsApp about child-lifters in the area, suddenly attacked them.