Video on religion shared by GMC’s Facebook page

Ghaziabad: A video claiming to show Islamic and Hindu religious practices was shared on the official Facebook page of the Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation — meant to highlight only the civic body’s activities — on March 6. The video was taken off the page nearly a day later, after receiving complaints from social media users about its controversial nature.
On Thursday, the municipal commissioner ordered an inquiry to identify the person who uploaded the objectionable video on the coroporation’s official page. However, no police complaint has been filed yet. According to sources, the video was shared on the civic body’s Facebook page from the timeline of Anand Chaurasia, who claims to be a former BJP member from Allahabad, as mentioned in his profile.

“Know from the video as to where from Muslims came, how did they turn into Muslims and how they will be finished. All that is needed is to pour holy Ganga water on the lingam of Lord Shiva. Everything will be finished (sic),” Chaurasia had commented along with the video.

The video, which is 4.24 minutes long, goes on to eulogise how Islamic religious practices were derived from Hinduism. It also claims several Islamic religious symbols had their genesis in Hindu mythology.

The video was shared by GMC on its Facebook page at 12.04 pm on March 6. It started attracting a slew of comments and reactions from social media users for over 24 hours that it remained on the timeline.

The video was taken down on Wednesday after senior officials of the civic body were apprised about the issue by Facebook users linked to the account of GMC At 5.47 pm on March 7, the civic body posted an apology on its timeline which said: “We regret for the last shared post”.

According to the corporation, its official Facebook account is handled by the computer section. The role of a hacker has not been ruled out by officials conducting the inquiry. “There are only two to three employees in the computer section who handle the Facebook page. It is an official page meant only to highlight the activities of the municipal corporation and not for sharing trivial posts. An inquiry has been set up to determine the identity of the person responsible for sharing the controversial video on Facebook. A number of officials in the corporation are being questioned. Prima facie, however, it appears that the post was not shared from a computer inside the office of the municipal corporation. Officials in charge of IT in the corporation are examining the issue,” municipal commissioner Chandra Prakash Singh told TOI.

Meanwhile, police said that if a case is registered, the accused may get punishment for violating provisions of Information Technology Act, 2008.

“It is the responsibility of the admin of the Facebook page to regulate content on the timeline. The admin of the page will be held primarily responsible for any goof-ups. We will register an FIR and conduct detailed investigations into the case if we receive a complaint. The municipal commissioner should take necessary action by changing the admin of the Facebook page and sending a complaint to police,” SSP Hari Narayan Singh said.