Journalist Deepak Chaurasia, AAP minister Kapil Mishra spar on Twitter

New Delhi

New Delhi

File photo of AAP leader and Delhi minister Kapil Mishra. TV journalist Deepak Chaurasia has alleged that he started getting threatening calls after Mishra tweeted his phone number. (Raj K Raj / HT Photo)

Senior television journalist Deepak Chaurasia’s wife registered a police complaint against unidentified people on Wednesday after her husband started receiving multiple threat calls on his personal phone numbers.

She lodged her complaint at the Safdarjung police station on Wednesday morning and a case of criminal intimidation against the unknown was registered soon.

The police complaint was filed under sections 506, 507, 509 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code for criminal intimidation by an anonymous communication and criminal act done by people with a common intention.

Chaurasia’s phone numbers were made public on Tuesday night by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Delhi tourism and water resources minister Kapil Mishra on his Twitter account.

“Dear Deepak Chaurasia, you just flashed my personal number on your television channel. I thought the love should not be one-sided. So I am sharing both your numbers. Enjoy,” Mishra had tweeted.

In a letter to the editors’ association, India News editor-in-chief Chaurasia alleged that after Mishra’s tweet he started receiving threats and abusive calls and his phone has not stopped ringing. Some of the callers even abused his children, he said.

“Kapil Mishra made my both mobile numbers public by tweeting them and suggested AAP workers to call and harass me,” Chaurasia said in a letter to the editors’ association.

He said his channel flashed only those mobile numbers which were already there on the Delhi government’s website.

“This is an attempt to threaten and silence all journalists,” he said in the letter.

Mishra said it was Chaurasia who started it. Mishra said he had tweeted the numbers because the journalist flashed his personal mobile number for hours on his channel during a programme on rising cases of dengue and chikungunya in Delhi.

The minister alleged he started getting hundreds of calls and messages and several of them were abusive and threatening.

“I would not have any problem if the channel did not keep repeating that I was not taking their calls. But making my number public was wrong,” he said.

Mishra, however, deleted the tweet that had Chaurasia’s numbers later.

“New day, new beginning. deleting my tweet On Dipak Chaurasiya, hopefully he hs realized by now wht was he trying to do & why I made him realize (sic),” he tweeted.