NEW DELHI : A complaint has been lodged in Delhi against actor Swara Bhasker, the Managing Director of Twitter India and two others over “inflammatory tweets” on the assault on a Muslim man in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad earlier this month. The police are, however, yet to file an FIR (First Information Report) based on the complaint by an advocate.
A lawyer approached Delhi Police with his complaint on Wednesday, a day after Twitter, several journalists and Congress leaders were named in an FIR in Ghaziabad over “provoking communal sentiments” with posts sharing the elderly man’s allegations. The complainant claims that Swara Bhasker, journalist Arfa Khanum and a person named Asif Khan, through their Twitter handles, “got inspired from the incident and started a propaganda to spread hate amongst the citizens”. Manish Maheshwari, the head of Twitter in India, did not take any action to remove these false tweets knowing the fact that the incident did not have any kind of communal angle”, the complaint says.

In the case filed by Uttar Pradesh Police, Twitter has been accused of not removing “misleading” content linked to the incident. The charges the social media giant faces include “intent to a riot, promoting enmity and criminal conspiracy”. The man, Sufi Abdul Samad, had alleged that his beard was cut off and he was forced to chant “Vande Mataram” and “Jai Shri Ram” by a group that assaulted him. UP Police say there was nothing communal about the incident; the man was attacked by six people — Hindus and Muslims – who were angry with him for allegedly selling fake good luck charms.

The Delhi Police has said that a complaint has been received against Twitter MD Manish Maheshwari, actress Swara Bhasker, journalist Arfa Khanum Sherwani and others in connection with the Ghaziabad assault case. The complainant, an advocate named Amit Acharya, said that Bhasker, Sherwani, and others spread hate against the citizens as they tried to give the incident a communal angle. He had submitted the complaint at the Tilak Marg police station on Wednesday.
“The tweets did not indicate their personal opinions instead showed wrong intentions of the users to initiate conspiracy against religious harmony in the country to encourage hate and enmity between the religious groups,” Amit said in the complaint. “Tweets were shared on social media at a very large scale and thousands of users have liked, quoted and also retweeted the same. The users knowingly shared the false information and have thereby committed offences,” he added.
The video which went viral on social media shows four men beating Sufi Abdul Samad up, chopping his beard and asking him to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ in the Loni area of Ghaziabad. Police, however, ruled out any communal angle in the incident, saying Samad was attacked by six men – Hindus and Muslims – who were unhappy over the amulets he had sold to them. Police said that Samad practiced occultism and had sold some amulets to Parvesh Gurjar, a man involved in the incident, to free one of his family members from some “evil effect” but a dispute arose between the two as there was no desired result of the amulet.
(With Agency Inputs ).

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