In the video, he had alleged that there were five people involved in the assault. (Screengrab) The Delhi Police Thursday said they have received a complaint against actress Swara Bhasker, Twitter MD Manish Maheshwari, journalist Arfa Khanum Sherwani and others in connection with the tweets posted about an elderly man who was assaulted in Ghaziabad on June 5. The complainant said that Bhasker, Sherwani, and others “spread hate against the citizens” by trying to give the incident a “communal colour”.
On Wednesday, an advocate named Amit Acharya submitted the complaint at the Tilak Marg police station in Delhi. The complainant has asked the Delhi police to file an FIR against Twitter Inc, Bhasker, Maheshwari, Sherwani and a man named Arif Khan and book them under IPC sections 153 (provocation for rioting), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups), 295A (acts intended to outrage religious feelings), 505 (mischief) and 120B (criminal conspiracy).
Three people have so far been arrested by the Ghaziabad police for allegedly assaulting the elderly man, Abdul Samad Saifi. While Saifi has alleged the men offered him an auto ride, took him to an isolated spot, and beat him up, forcing him to chant Jai Shri Ram, police said the accused beat him up because he had sold them a “tabeez (amulet)” that they believed did not work. The arrested accused have been identified as Parvesh Gujjar, Adil, and Kallu.
The complaint mentions that the miscreants involved in the incident are from “Hindu and Muslim religious groups” but the accused persons used this incident to “communalise and spread hate amongst the religions.”
“These users have lakhs of followers and an official account. Knowing the fact that their tweets have an impact on society, they gave communal colours to the incident without fact-checking the truthfulness of the incident. The concerned tweets were floated across the social media with the motive of hampering peace and harmony amongst the religious groups,” reads the complaint.
Acharya has alleged that Maheshwari didn’t remove the false tweets knowing that the incident didn’t have a “communal angle” and Twitter India also didn’t tag the tweets as “manipulated media”, a tag that is given by the platform to tweets with fake news.
Deepak Yadav, DCP (New Delhi) said, “A complaint has been filed against Swara Bhaskar, Manish Maheshwari (MD Twitter India) and others at PS Tilak Marg. We have received it and the matter is under inquiry.”
Earlier, the Ghaziabad Police lodged an FIR against Twitter, Congress leaders, and journalists Mohammed Zubair and Rana Ayyub over tweets in connection with the assault. A local Samajwadi Party leader, Ummed Pahalwan Idrisi, who appeared in a Facebook Live video alongside the elderly man has also been booked.
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