The Uttar Pradesh Police registered an FIR against Twitter, Twitter India, journalists over the video of an elderly man from Uttar Pradesh which has gone viral.
The video that surfaced a couple of days earlier initially shared by Alt News founder Mohammed Zubair showed an elderly Muslim Man, Abdul Samad Saifi being assaulted, his beard forcibly cut by men suspected to be from the right-wing men groups, who are close allies to the BJP-Government in Uttar Pradesh.
The Police in a continuation of suppressing free and independent voices has accused Alt News co-founder Muhammad Zubair, Congress leaders Maskoor Usmani, Salman Nizami and Shama Mohamed, journalists Saba Naqvi and Rana Ayyub and news publication The Wire of trying to give a “communal spin” to the incident.
In its FIR, the Police has stated that “The statements which were made on Twitter were not the opinion of a person but done with a clear intention. These tweets point towards a criminal conspiracy. The aforesaid accused and other unknown persons tried to spread hatred and hostility between Hindus and Muslims. It is clear that these tweets were posted to further a common goal of creating a religious divide and disturbing religious harmony. Such tweets were propagated on a large scale.”
The Police in Uttar Pradesh has stressed that Twitter and Twitter India did not take any steps to remove the contentious tweets.
As per the FIR, the aforesaid 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.
This case has been registered at the Loni Border Police Station in Ghaziabad.