On the 17th of June, the Delhi Police filed a complaint against Bollywood actress Swara Bhasker, Twitter Managing Director of India Manish Maheshwari, Journalist Arfa Khanum Sherwani and others in the Ghaziabad man assault case.
Recently, on several social media platforms and news websites, a video of an elderly Muslim man identified as Abdul Saifi Samad of Loni, Ghaziabad went viral. In the video, a group of goons (said to be Hindus) were assaulting the man and forcefully cut off his beard. The incident, which occurred on the 5th of June, gained a lot of comments and criticism indicating a communal angle (Hindu-Muslim.) Many celebrities, journalists and news websites posted the image of the UP man and said it to be a communal issue.
However, days after the incident, the Ghaziabad Police denied the communal angle in the case and said it to be an internal dispute over amulets.
In regard to this, on Thursday, the Delhi police received a complaint against the aforementioned people. According to the complainant, advocate Amit Acharya, these people posted the tweets giving it a communal angle, spreading hate amongst citizens. The complainant asked the Delhi police to file a first information report (FIR) against Twitter Inc., Swara Bhasker, Manish Maheshwari, Arfa Khanum Sherwani and a man named Arif Khan and to book them under sections 153 (provocation for rioting,) 153A (promoting enmity between different groups,) 295A (acts intended to outrage religious feelings,) 505 (mischief) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC.)
The complaint mentioned that the miscreants involved in the incident are from “Hindu and Muslim religious groups” but the accused persons used this incident to “communalise and spread hate amongst the religions.”
Mr. Amit Aacharya also said, “These users have lakhs of followers and an official account. Knowing the fact that their tweets have an impact on society, they gave communal colours to the incident without fact-checking the truthfulness of the incident. The concerned tweets were floated across the social media with the motive of hampering peace and harmony amongst the religious groups.”
Deepak Yadav, the District Commissioner of Police (DCP) (New Delhi) said, “A complaint has been filed against Swara Bhasker, Manish Maheshwari (MD Twitter India) and others at PS Tilak Marg. We have received it and the matter is under inquiry.”
Meanwhile, the Ghaziabad Police arrested three persons, including a Muslim. The arrested youth have been identified as Kalloo and Adil. Apart from them, Polly, Arif, Mushahid and Parvesh Gurjar were also involved in the incident.
Getting into the details of the incident, the police said, Abdul Saifi Samad also practised occultism and had sold some amulet to Gurjar, purportedly to free one of his family members from some “evil effect” but a dispute arose between the two as there was no desired result of the amulet.
The matter is still under investigation.
Stay tuned for further updates.
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