Bhopal man arrested for sending rape, death threats to journalist Rana Ayyub

The accused was operating from an Instagram profile with a fictitious name. He was served a notice by the police and on Thursday was arrested in Mumbai

Mumbai: A 24-year-old man from Bhopal has been arrested in connection to allegedly threatening independent journalist Rana Ayyub of rape and murder on Twitter and Instagram. The accused, identified as Siddharth Shrivastav, who has studied till class 10. He works as a salesman in a garment shop and is unmarried. A police officer informed, “Shrivastav allegedly threatened to kill Rana if she continued her work as a journalist. He also used vulgar and obscene language against her.”

The police have secured information on the six Twitter and Instagram accounts from the service providers. The cyber cell is also investigating whether the accused have targeted other journalists or individuals on social media (Saumya Khandelwal/HT PHOTO)

The accused was operating from an Instagram profile with a fictitious name. He was served a notice by the police and on Thursday was arrested in Mumbai. He was produced before a metropolitan magistrate in Bandra by the police seeking his custody, however the court remanded him to judicial custody. He would be lodged in jail after his RT-PCR test.

Ayyub tweeted on Thursday, “Mumbai cyber crime has made the first arrest in the rape and death threats issued to me. A young man has been arrested from Bhopal for giving me death threats. Hugely impressed with the alacrity of @MumbaiPolice and @CPMumbaiPolice who had promised me justice without delay. A First Information Report (FIR) has been registered in the matter on January 28 against atleast four unknown suspects.

On January 25, Ayyub had tweeted, “26.4 thousand tweets, most are abusive, rape and death threats, calling me a terror sympathiser. Most tweets are by the Indian right wing & Saudi nationalists who are attacking me after I posted a tweet in solidarity with Yemen and calling out the Saudis. Hello @TwitterIndia.”

Ayyub, who has over 1.5 million followers on Twitter and 320K followers on Instagram, has been a staunch critic of the BJP-led union government and right-wing organisations. The next day, on January 26, a Twitter user by name @thescoopbeats claiming to be an Indian News Media Organisation, posted a YouTube video link with a message, “Saudi Arab Banned Rana Ayyub #RanaAyyub #SaudiArabian #banned @RanaAyyub @KingSalman Anchor @Mannusahu1319, @Vidyanshi6 Editor @Patrakar_Ayush.”

In the 10-minute video, two young women presented a news bulletin with memes under the title, ‘Saudi Banned Rana Ayyub?’. The video received over 4,000 views. In a tweet, Ayyub claimed that the portal spread fake news by using a photoshopped tweet image of Ayyub saying she hates India and she hates all Indians. In response, the portal uploaded another video claiming that the facts presented in their news were all correct and authentic.

Mumbai police officers said that they are also looking into the YouTube video. The police have secured information on the six Twitter and Instagram accounts from the service providers. The cyber cell is also investigating whether the accused have targeted other journalists or individuals on social media.

The accused persons have been booked by the West Region Cyber Police Station under sections 354A (Sexual Harassment), 506-2 (death threats), 509 (outraging modesty of women), 500 (defamation) of the Indian Penal Code and 66c (Punishment for identity theft) and 67 (publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of Information Technology Act, the police said. More arrests are likely in the case.