Uttar Pradesh Police booked microblogging platform Twitter, news portal The Wire.in, several journalists and Congress leaders for “promoting enmity between religions” by posting and promoting an allegedly manipulated video of an elderly Muslim man’s assault amid conflicting narratives of the attack.
Police officers familiar with the matter said Twitter has been named in the first information report filed in Loni, Ghaziabad, because it didn’t prevent the video from going viral and even helped in its promotion and circulation. The video purportedly showed the elderly man, later identified as Sufi Abdul Samad, being beaten up and his attackers cutting off his beard.
Samad’s family and friends later claimed that he was forced to chant “Vande Mataram” and “Jai Shri Ram” by his attackers. Police, however, ruled out any communal angle to the incident and said the group of six men who attacked Samad included both Hindus and Muslims who were unhappy about some amulets (taveez) he had allegedly sold them, and which they believed didn’t work.
“On June 15, Ghaziabad police had clarified that the incident took place due to a personal dispute. Both parties involved were Hindu and Muslim. Despite this, social media influencers didn’t delete their tweets, which led to communal disharmony in the state,” said UP’s additional director general of police (law and order), Prashant Kumar.
{{/usCountry}}“On June 15, Ghaziabad police had clarified that the incident took place due to a personal dispute. Both parties involved were Hindu and Muslim. Despite this, social media influencers didn’t delete their tweets, which led to communal disharmony in the state,” said UP’s additional director general of police (law and order), Prashant Kumar.
{{/usCountry}}The UP Police FIR says the men who attacked Samad were known to him and three of them have been arrested for voluntarily causing hurt and wrongful confinement. It added the muted video was allegedly circulated with the objective of disrupting communal harmony and causing a riot. HT has seen a copy of the FIR, which also names journalists Rana Ayyub and Saba Naqvi; co-founder of fact-checking website AltNews, Mohammed Zubair; and Congress leaders Salman Nizami, Maskoor Usmani and Dr Shama Mohammad.
But confusion continued about the June 5 attack. Samad mentioned the alleged religious slogans in a Facebook Live session he did on June 7 with a local Samajwadi Party leader, identified as Ummed Pehalwan Idrisi.
On Wednesday, Idrisi conducted another Facebook Live session with Samad and the family and alleged that police deliberately left out the alleged communal slogan chanting from the FIR.
“The complaint was concealed by the police, and they filed it on their own. I demand that CCTV of the police station should be checked,” Idrisi said. The victim’ s son, Babbu (who only goes by one name) said on Tuesday night that the police was attempting to divert the case.
Loni police refused to comment on the allegations, saying that they were unsubstantiated.
Police also filed a separate FIR against Idrisi for allegedly promoting religious enmity between different groups, outraging religious feelings and breaching of peace.
“The FIR is filed against Pehalwan as he was the one who took up Facebook live session along with the victim and concealed facts that the suspects were known to the victim and also issued statements which amounted to spreading hatred among communities,” said Atul Kumar Sonkar, circle officer of Loni.
The Wire released a statement in which it condemned the criminal case.