Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said people were being arrested in the country "for what they think". Speaking at an interaction with students of Bharathidasan Government College for Women in Puducherry, Gandhi reacted to climate activist Disha Ravi's arrest and said that the nation's character was being destroyed as people were not being allowed to talk.
"Maybe I'll get arrested for saying this... if you're shutting up the nation and frightening people and not allowing them to talk, you're destroying the nation's character," he said.
The 22-year-old Ravi was arrested by the cyber crime unit of Delhi Police for allegedly sharing on social media a toolkit related to the farmers’ protests against the Centre’s contentious agricultural laws.
According to the police, it was Ravi who had shared the toolkit document with Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg. She was booked for sedition, promoting enmity and criminal conspiracy, among other offences and was produced at a city court on Sunday, after which she was sent to five days in police custody.
“Disha Ravi, arrested by CyPAD Delhi Police, is an Editor of the Toolkit Google Doc & key conspirator in document’s formulation & dissemination. She started WhatsApp Group & collaborated to make the Toolkit doc. She worked closely with them to draft the Doc,” a tweet by Delhi police read.
“In this process, they all collaborated with the pro-Khalistani Poetic Justice Foundation to spread disaffection against the Indian State. She was the one who shared the Toolkit Doc with Greta Thunberg,” another tweet read.
{{/usCountry}}“In this process, they all collaborated with the pro-Khalistani Poetic Justice Foundation to spread disaffection against the Indian State. She was the one who shared the Toolkit Doc with Greta Thunberg,” another tweet read.
{{/usCountry}}The police further claimed that the call was to wage an economic, social, cultural and regional war against India. Thunberg, who had shared the toolkit on Twitter, later deleted the original tweet.