‘Moral policing’ video: Journalist sent notice for heckling Kharghar girl

A self-proclaimed journalist shoots a video of a woman with her male friend, objects to her visiting a cafe, and threatens to make it viral to defame her. Her father learns of the video two months after teh incident and lodges complaint with the police

NAVI MUMBAI: A day after an FIR was lodged by a Kharghar-based woman against an unidentified man who forcefully videographed her 18-year-old daughter on Nerul road for talking to a boy belonging to another religion and posted it on twitter in order to defame her, the Navi Mumbai police have identified the accused and served him with a notice.

Screenshot of a video shot by this man who claims to be a journalist (HT PHOTO)

The accused was identified as Arif Ali Raut (50), a resident of Taloja. “He is a self proclaimed journalist of ‘Media Detection’ weekly newspaper published in Marathi and Hindi and claims to be a social activist as well,” Police Inspector (crime) Mahesh Patil from Nerul Police Station said.

The accused seen in the video is heard saying that ‘This Muslim girl was found going to the roof top cafe with a Hindu boy. I told the girl to give her parent’s contact number or else I will make the video viral. The girl is not ready to give the number and hence if this video gets viral, she is the one responsible.’ He is also heard boasting that he is from the Press and nobody can stop him when other passersby try to stop him from filming. He also claims that four more boys who are also her friends are still at the roof top. The hijab-clad girl, who has kept her face hidden can be seen wiping her tears and making sure that her face is not captured in the camera.

The incident had happened on May 2 and the father of the girl who works abroad had recently come back home. Someone had forwarded the video on his whatsapp which he recognised was that of his daughter. Since they had guests at home, they did not ask anything to the daughter before them and later when they asked, she broke down and narrated that while she gone to play game with her friends, an unidentified man forcefully started videographing the girl. The family then found that a twitter handle named ‘shirkdestroyer’ had tweeted the video. The family requested the handle to take down the video as it was misleading. Since the video was not taken down, the family finally approached police and registered a case on July 4.

“The accused was identified with the help of our colleagues in Kharghar as he was a known person there. He claimed that he had not posted the video and had just sent on his media group. We are yet to verify to whom the twitter handle belongs,” a police officer from Nerul police station said. The video was deleted from the handle on Thursday morning.

The accused in the case was booked under sections 341 (Punishment for wrongful restraint) and 500 (punishment for defamation) of the IPC.