Amid Twitter row, Yogi warns against fake news

Virendra Singh Rawat

Lucknow / June 17, 2021

 

In the backdrop of the Ghaziabad Police in Uttar Pradesh registering a case against US micro blogging major Twitter and others, chief minister Yogi Adityanath has issued stern warning against fake news.

 

Presiding over a high level meeting here yesterday, Yogi directed officials to take stern action against those indulging in spreading or circulating fake news or videos. “The state government will not tolerate any attempt to fan communal frenzy through fake news,” he underlined.

 

On Tuesday, the cops at the Loni Border Police Station in Ghaziabad had registered a first information report (FIR) against Twitter, Twitter India and seven others, including a news portal, over a viral video pertaining to an elderly man.

 

The video purportedly depicted Abdul Samad Saifi being assaulted and his beard forcibly cut by unidentified persons, who allegedly also asked him to chant religious slogans.

 

In the FIR, the cops also booked AltNews co-founder Mohd Zubair, Congress leaders Maskoor Usmani, Salman Nizami and Shama Mohamed, apart from journalists Saba Naqvi and Rana Ayyub and news portal The Wire for allegedly attempting to give a communal twist to the incident.

 

The FIR noted that follow up tweets were not merely opinions, but purposely circulated for nefarious designs, thus pointing towards criminal conspiracy. The accused have been charged with trying to spread hatred and hostility between the two communities.

 

Twitter has been charged with failing to take any steps to remove the so called objectionable tweets. The accused have been booked under Sections 34 (common intention), 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 153 (provocation with intent to cause riot), 153-A (promoting enmity on grounds of religion), 295-A (deliberate act to outrage religious feelings) and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of the Indian Penal Code.

 

Meanwhile, the Ghaziabad Police claimed Samad was assaulted by miscreants known to him. According to the cops, Samad had previously given an amulet for good fortune to those accused of roughing him up. They beat him up when the amulet failed to bring the promised results.