Jodhpur court orders FIR against Twitter CEO over placard row

A court in Rajasthan’s Jodhpur on Saturday ordered police to register a case against Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey whose picture holding a controversial poster had kicked up a row.

Metropolitan Magistrate Rachna Bissa ordered Basni police station to file the FIR on a complaint by Rajkumar Sharma, the state vice president of the Vipra Foundation’s youth wing.

Lawyer Hastimal Saraswat said that the photo of the Twitter CEO with a group of woman journalists and activists in which he was holding a poster saying “smash Brahmanical patriarchy” had hurt sentiments of Brahmins. He alleged that such a photo was posted to humiliate the community.

According to Sharma’s complainant, he saw this tweet on his mobile after which he submitted a written FIR in Basni police station, but the police did not register a case. When nothing happened even after he approached the police commissioner, he had filed a complaint in court.

The picture, posted on Twitter on Sunday by a journalist who was part of group of women whom Dorsey met during his visit to India last week, had him clutching a poster of a woman holding up a banner with the line that has offended many Indians. Twitter had later apologised.

First Published: Dec 01, 2018 18:42 IST