After two police teams conducted raids on Twitter’s offices in Delhi and Gurgaon, opposition parties on Monday alleged that the cowardly raid on the microblogging site’s offices by the Delhi Police exposes lameduck attempts to hide a fraudulent toolkit by BJP leaders.
The BJP had accused the Congress of creating a toolkit meant to tarnish the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the handling of the Covid pandemic. However, the Congress denied the allegation and claimed that the BJP is propagating a fake toolkit to defame it.
Last week, Twitter labelled as manipulated media a tweet by Patra on the alleged toolkit. Twitter says it may label Tweets that include media (videos, audio, and images) that have been deceptively altered or fabricated.
The government had earlier asked Twitter to remove the manipulated media tag as the matter is pending before a law enforcement agency, and made it clear that the social media platform cannot pass judgment when the issue is under investigation.
The Delhi Police’s Special Cell on Monday sent a notice to Twitter India in connection with the probe into a complaint about an alleged Covid toolkit, asking it to share information based on which it had classified a related tweet by BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra as manipulated media. Two police teams also descended on the microblogging site’s offices in Lado Sarai in Delhi and in Gurgaon this evening, with Delhi Police PRO Chinmoy Biswal saying the teams went to the Twitter office to serve a notice to Twitter as a part of a routine process.
Calling the act shameful, the CPI(M) on Monday alleged that the central government was using the Delhi Police to intimidate Twitter for political purposes. Priority of these times is to focus on providing healthcare, medicines and vaccines. The Union home minister instead unleashes Delhi Police on a social media platform to intimidate it for petty and partisan political purposes. Inhuman. Shameful, tweeted CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury.
Reacting to the development, Congress’ chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said on Twitter, Cowardly raid on @Twitter unleashed by Delhi Police exposes lameduck attempts to hide the fraudulent toolkit by BJP leaders. Such attempts to murder freedom of speech lay bare the BJP’s guilt, he said and tagged his video statement on the issue.
In the video statement, Surjewala alleged that the subjugation of free speech, the attempts to stifle every voice that is a dissenting voice against this government and the state-sponsored fraudulent means to propagate and to instill fear continue unabated in Modi government. He alleged that the BJP forged documents to produce a fake toolkit.
Read Also: PNB Scam: Fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi missing in Antigua, local police launch manhunt
The Congress leader claimed that after the toolkit was exposed, the BJP and the Modi government, being scared of it, was raiding Twitter offices both in Delhi and in Gurgaon.