Ghaziabad Police has sent a legal notice to Managing Director of Twitter India over viral video of an elderly man in Loni being assaulted with the intent of “provoking communal unrest”. The MD has been summoned to Loni border police station and has to record the statement within seven days.
The Delhi Police had earlier received a complaint against actress Swara Bhaskar, Twitter India MD Manish Maheshwari, and others connected with social media posts about an attack on an elderly Muslim man in Ghaziabad on June 5, officials said Thursday.
Police said the complaint was received at Tilak Marg police station. In a video uploaded on social media, the elderly Muslim man had accused four people of beating him up, chopping his beard and asking him to chant “Jai Shri Ram” in the Loni area of Ghaziabad.
The Ghaziabad police had already registered an FIR in connection with this alleged incident on June 5, but was reported to police two days later.
The Uttar Pradesh Police has filed the FIR against Twitter Inc, Twitter Communications India, news portal The Wire, scribes Mohammed Zubair and Rana Ayyub, and senior journalist and author Saba Naqvi, besides Congress leaders Salman Nizami, Masqoor Usmani and Sama Mohammad for sharing the video clip on the social media.
Meanwhile, a Delhi Police Special Cell team visited Bengaluru on May 31 to question Twitter India managing director in connection with posts by BJP leaders alleging a “Congress toolkit” plot, which had led the Congress to lodge a complaint of “forgery”.
Police had earlier visited Twitter India’s office in New Delhi, and summoned the Congress’s social media head Rohan Gupta and party spokesperson M V Rajeev Gowda, who filed the complaint.
According to a report by The Indian Express, a senior officer said the New Delhi Range of the Special Cell had approached Maheshwari days after police tried to serve a notice on Twitter at the social media company’s offices in the National Capital Region.
The police team had failed to locate the company’s Gurgaon office, and had found the one in Delhi locked on May 24.
During the questioning, which went on for around two hours, the investigation team asked Maheshwari about the hierarchy of the company.
The Congress on Thursday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to suppress the voice of 140 crore Indians and does not want them to say anything against him and his government. Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the action against Twitter and other social media platforms is only aimed at suppressing the freedom of their speech and expression.
He said this in the context of the government initiating action against Twitter. The government has asked Twitter to comply with intermediary guidelines and said it has lost its “safe harbour” protection in India over non-compliance with IT rules and failure to appoint key personnel mandated under the new guidelines.
IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said Twitter failed to comply with intermediary guidelines and has “deliberately” chosen the path of non-compliance despite being granted multiple opportunities. Surjewala said Twitter does not write anything of its own, it is the people of the country who write against this government and its policies.
“Prime Minister Modi wants to suppress the voice of 140 crore Indians. It is the fight for the freedom of speech. Today, journalists in the country cannot write against this government, else they will lose their job or life. In such a situation, only YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, social platforms are left and Modi ji himself is the creation of such platforms,” he told reporters. “Twitter does not write anything of its own. It is the people of India — the youth, the Dalits, the farmers, the poor — who write against the government and criticise Modi ji, then they have problems. Now, they want to lock down every social media platform as well and this is their intention,” the Congress leader said.
Meanwhile, the parliamentary standing committee for information and technology will meet at 4 pm on Friday at the Parliament House where Twitter officials have been summoned to appear before the committee. Officials from the Ministry of IT would also be present on the committee.
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