Police in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad have registered a case against Meta India Managing Director Arun Srinivas over multiple videos posted on Facebook that allegedly depicted Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an abusive manner, according to a senior police official.
The case comes as Prime Minister Modi faces widespread youth-led protests over leaked national examination papers, a controversy that recently led to the resignation of India's education minister.
Hyderabad Deputy Commissioner of Police for Cyber Crimes V. Aravind Babu said authorities are preparing to issue a notice to Meta regarding the case.
Meta did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Executive named personally
It was not immediately clear why Srinivas had been named personally in the case, an uncommon step involving a senior executive of a global technology company.
The development follows India's tightening of intermediary liability rules earlier this year. Under the revised regulations, social media platforms must remove unlawful content identified by courts or the government within three hours, instead of the previous 36-hour deadline, or risk losing legal protections.
Legal experts say holding an executive personally liable would generally require evidence of an active role and knowledge of the alleged offence.
Growing scrutiny of Meta
Meta has repeatedly faced criticism from India's government over content shared on Facebook and Instagram, including allegations that the company has not done enough to curb hate speech and misinformation.
Earlier this week, India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology summoned Meta executives after Facebook briefly restricted one of Modi's posts related to the nationwide student protests.
Meta later said the restriction resulted from an inadvertent error.
Facebook's largest market
India is Facebook's largest market by user base, making it one of Meta's most strategically important countries.
Srinivas has served as Meta's Managing Director and Head of India since July 2025.
According to local media reports, the latest case follows complaints filed by supporters of Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who alleged that manipulated videos and images of the prime minister were being circulated on Meta-owned platforms, including Facebook and Instagram.
