24 ‘X’ accounts get Mumbai police notice to remove documentary on Modi, Adani

The controversial documentary accuses Prime Minister Narendra Modi and industrialist Gautam Adani of corruption, collusion, and corporate cronyism.

MUMBAI: The Mumbai police issued a notice to X (formerly Twitter) on October 18 to review 24 of its account holders and take appropriate action for sharing a Sabeer Bhatia documentary titled ‘How Adani and Modi stole India’, terming the content false and misleading. The platform subsequently forwarded the notice to the account holders for their response.

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The controversial documentary accuses Prime Minister Narendra Modi and industrialist Gautam Adani of corruption, collusion, and corporate cronyism. It gained attention after the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued takedown directives to platforms such as YouTube and Meta following court orders.

The notice issued by the Mumbai police stated that the West Cyber police, Crime Branch and CID received a complaint alleging that multiple X accounts published and disseminated highly objectionable content targeting a well-known company. This content allegedly lacked any apparent factual or lawful basis, causing serious and continuing harm to the company’s reputation.

It further stated that publishing and disseminating objectionable, false, misleading, and disparaging statements violates X’s rules and Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) sections 352 and 356.

Mumbai police requested X to urgently review the objectionable tweets posted through multiple handles and take appropriate action to remove or disable access to the content in accordance with applicable law and the platform’s policies.

Meanwhile, Sabeer Bhatia, an Indian-American entrepreneur who co-founded the first free web-based email service, Hotmail.com (now Outlook.com) and who directed and uploaded the documentary in question, posted on X that he had deleted the video. A few X account holders also deleted the video while others posted the notice, claiming injustice.