In the initial tweet, Maliwal tagged the Delhi Police. (File)The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chief Swati Maliwal found herself in the eye of a storm Tuesday, after she shared an old video of a minor being raped by a man on Twitter. As the tweet drew criticism — it is illegal to reveal a rape victim’s identity — she deleted the tweet and wrote: “Shared video so that he is identified! However, have deleted it and sought a report from Police. Apologise if I have hurt sentiments.”
In the initial tweet, Maliwal tagged the Delhi Police and wrote: “Chilled to the bone on watching this. Delhi Police please immediately file FIR and arrest this pervert… he should be arrested.” Maliwal claimed to have sent a notice to DCP (Central) Mandeep Singh Randhawa, which said that the DCW came across the video on social media and that it was “deeply disturbing… a zero FIR must be registered.”
Randhawa said the notice had not been received yet. Additional PRO of the Delhi Police Anil Mittal said, “We have found that the video is not from Delhi.”
Before Maliwal deleted her tweet, it had already been retweeted over 200 times. A Delhi Police officer said, “It’s a violation of IPC section 228A (disclosure of the identity of the victim of certain offences), but no complaint has been filed against her… The video has been deleted by Maliwal from Twitter.”
