Twenty-one-year-old Disha Ravi was arrested from her north Bengaluru home on Saturday night by a Delhi police team.

news Controversy Sunday, February 14, 2021 - 15:43
TNM Staff

Disha Ravi, the 21-year-old climate activist from Bengaluru who has been arrested over a Google document shared on farmers’ protests by international climate activist Greta Thunberg, has been sent to police custody for five days. Disha was arrested from Bengaluru on Saturday night, and Delhi police have alleged that she “edited” the Google document which was shared as a “toolkit” for the protests. 

Disha was produced before a Delhi court on Sunday afternoon, where she was remanded to police custody for five days. Disha’s arrest marks the first in the case registered by the Delhi police over this ‘toolkit.’

In a statement, Delhi police have stated that Disha was “one of the Editors of the Toolkit Google Doc and a key conspirator in the document's formulation and dissemination.” Though the ‘toolkit’ shared by Greta has triggered a big row, it is to be noted that ‘toolkits’ are documents, that contain basic information on any issue, tweet suggestions and information on what hashtags to use and who to tag on social media, and are a regular inventory while organising protests online. Various forms of toolkits are also used by social media teams of political parties as well when they need to plan a particular social media campaign. The police's contention is that in this case, the document was made with an intention to malign India.

Disha Ravi is a co-founder of ‘Fridays For Future’ campaign, which was inspired by Greta Thunberg’s protest for the environment. She was arrested under the FIR filed by the cyber-crime unit of the Delhi police on February 4 against the creators of the "toolkit" on farmers' protest under charges of sedition, criminal conspiracy and promoting hatred. Currently, Disha Ravi, who graduated from Mount Carmel College in Bengaluru, is currently working as a culinary experience manager with a company that produces plant-based food. Disha was taken to New Delhi on a 6 pm flight on Saturday and her arrest was registered late at night.

Several youth-based environmental collectives have condemned her arrest, calling the charges baseless, and have demanded that she be released. 

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