Ghaziabad (UP), June 16: Police here have booked Twitter, a news portal and six people for circulating a video in which an elderly Muslim man says he was thrashed and asked to chant “Jai Shri Ram”. Police claimed that it was done to create communal unrest.
The FIR names Twitter Inc, Twitter Communications India, news website The Wire, journalists Mohammed Zubair and Rana Ayyub, Congress leaders Shama Mohamed, Salman Nizami, Maskoor Usmani and writer Saba Naqvi. “These people did not verify the truth of the matter and shared it online with a communal angle with an intention to disrupt public peace and create a divide between religious groups,” the FIR states.
The FIR was lodged at Loni Border police station in Ghaziabad around 11.30 pm on Tuesday on the basis of a complaint lodged by a local policeman.
The police action came within hours of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath exchanging remarks on Twitter over the incident.
The Press Club of India (PCI) has demanded that the FIR naming the journalists should be quashed because it shows “vendetta” by the Ghaziabad police to create a “sense of terror” in the media and society at large. (PTI)
