Bengaluru activist Disha Ravi held in Greta Thunberg's protest toolkit case
A senior Delhi police officer, who wished not to be named, said Ravi was picked up for questioning related to her role in spreading the toolkit.
The Delhi Police's cyber crime unit on Saturday arrested 21-year-old climate activist Disha Ravi from her house in North Bengaluru for her alleged role in spreading the 'toolkit' related to the country-wide farmers' protest against the three farm laws on social media.
The Delhi police had registered an FIR for sedition, promoting hatred among groups and criminal conspiracy under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) on February 4 after the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg tweeted the 'toolkit' while expressing her support to the farmers’ protest in India. The police have claimed that the ‘toolkit’ was put together by a "pro-khakistani group" named poetic justice. The 18-year-old had, however, later deleted the original tweet.
A senior police officer, who wished not to be named, said Ravi was picked up for questioning related to her role in spreading the toolkit. "We are ascertaining if she was in touch with more people who were involved in this," the officer said.
Officials who did not want to be named said Ravi was arrested and will be produced before a court later in the day. The Delhi police, however, did not officially confirm the arrest.
Ravi is founder of a group named Fridays For Future and is a graduate in bachelor of business administration.
According to the Delhi Police officials, Disha is a key lead in the "toolkit" case as she had admitted during the initial interrogation to editing, adding some things in the "toolkit" and spreading it further.
The special cell will now make further inquiries after her remand.
More arrests in this case have not been ruled out, a news agency said quoting unnamed police officials.
Last week, the Delhi Police sent a communication to Google seeking registration details and activity log of the account through which a "toolkit" related to the farmers' protest was created and uploaded on the social media platform.
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Two e-mail IDs, one Instagram account, and one Uniform Resource Locator (URL) were mentioned in the toolkit and police had asked for details from the respective platforms.
Farmers have been protesting at different borders of the national capital since November 26 last year against the three newly enacted farm laws: Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; the Farmers Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and farm Services Act 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.