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Police say activists were preparing a second toolkit but could not execute it
New Delhi: The Delhi Police on Wednesday said the activists involved in the creation of a social media toolkit on the ongoing farmers’ protests prepared a second document to organise a Twitter storm aimed at “creating unrest” in Delhi on February 4 and 5 with hashtags related to the violence during January 26 tractor rally, but could not execute it
New Delhi: The Delhi Police on Wednesday said the activists involved in the creation of a social media toolkit on the ongoing farmers’ protests prepared a second document to organise a Twitter storm aimed at “creating unrest” in Delhi on February 4 and 5 with hashtags related to the violence during January 26 tractor rally, but could not execute it.
Investigators said the second document was created by Nikta Jacob, Shantanu Muluk -- two activists who have been accused of creating and sharing the first document -- and and a UK-based activist Marina Patterson, who is allegedly linked with the global movement “Extinction Rebellion” also referred to as “XR”.
According to its website, Extinction Rebellion is an international movement that uses non-violent civil disobedience in an attempt to halt mass extinction and minimise the risk of social collapse.
“The plan mentioned in the second toolkit, however, could not be executed. We suspect it happened because the toolkit was accidentally tweeted by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg on February 3, the day Ravi shared it with her and coaxed her to act on it. Since the Google toolkit documents contained objectionable content, Ravi panicked, asked Greta to delete the tweet, took the admin rights and removed her name from the toolkit,” said a second senior police officer associated with the case, requesting anonymity.
According to the officer, the investigating team has already written to Google seeking details of both toolkit documents to ascertain where they were actually created, who drafted and edited them, and with whom it was shared.
The Delhi Police on Saturday arrested 22-year-old climate activist Disha Ravi from Bengaluru on charges of sedition, intending to riot and criminal conspiracy, for editing and creating a toolkit, essentially a Google document. The police have alleged that the toolkit was created to spread misinformation and incite unrest. They have also alleged that Disha shared the document with Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg who tweeted it but later removed it.
Both Muluk and Jacob have been grated pre-arrest bail court.
Activists from various organisations have said that creating a toolkit was standard operating procedure for advocacy and media outreach, and did not constitute a crime as it was entirely up to people whether or not to follow what toolkits suggested.
Protests against the arrests of the activists in the case continued on Wednesday with members of the Congress-backed National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) protesting in Delhi, and accusing the central government of using “Fascist techniques” to quell democratic protests in the country.
“Only four sedition cases out of the 191 filed after this government came to power have resulted in convictions. The government uses tough laws and misuses them to silence all dissenting voices,” NSUI president Neeraj Kundan said in a statement.
As per the information available with the police, the first toolkit was shared with the members of pro-Khalistani group Poetic Justice Foundation (PFJ) by Jacob on January 23 while the other one was circulated on February 1, the officer said.
On February 15, the Delhi Police said that they first came across the toolkit on February 4 and registered a first information report (FIR) the same day to probe it on charges of sedition and criminal conspiracy, though it did not name any individual.
In a press briefing on that day, the police pointed to a “copycat execution of the action plan detailed in the toolkit” and alleged the document was created by pro-Khalistani group Poetic Justice Foundation (PJF).
Disha Ravi, a 22-year-old climate activist, was the first person arrested in the case from her home in Bengaluru on Saturday (February 13). She is now in the custody of Delhi Police. The other two suspects –Muluk and Jacob – were granted transit anticipatory bail by the Bombay High Court on Tuesday and Wednesday while Delhi police said they were looking for them.
The FIR that has the mentioning of banned organization Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) and Poetic Justice Foundation” reads that during social media monitoring on February 4 it came to notice that a link of a Google document that has been accidentally shared on Twitter “contains a detailed plan of a large conspiracy to wage an economic, social, cultural, and regional war against India.”
“The banned organization Sikh For Justice based in USA had declared a reward of USD 25,000 for waiving secessionist flag at the India Gate on Republic Day. After the violence that occurred on January 26, various social media handles are being used to spread rumours and fake news/videos to promote enmity between different groups wantonly give provocation with intent to commit riots and bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection towards the government of India,” the FIR read.
According to the police, Jacob, Ravi and Muluk knew each other since 2019 and that Jacob and Muluk first came in touch with PFJ’s Canada-based woman member named Puneet in the first week of December through Instagram. Ravi created a WhatsApp group on December 6 while Muluk created an email ID on December 11 – all for discussing their global action plan around the farmers’ protest that was finally announced by the PFJ on January 9, the police said.
On January 11, the police said, nearly 70 people including the trio and the PFJ’s members has a video conferencing meeting on Zoom where they discussed the modalities of the tooklit. Another invite for a similar meeting was sent to Muluk and Jacob by the PFJ on January 17 and the meeting happened on January 20, when the final toolkit was prepared. The toolkit was shared with the PFJ members on January 23. On January 3, Ravi shared the toolkit with Greta who accidentally posted it on Twitter, the police said.
