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‘Submit devices’: Delhi Police to Adhir Ranjan after FIR | Top updates
The controversial tweet was posted on Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury’s official Twitter handle around 11.27am on Saturday. An infographic in the tweet had a statement attributed to Rajiv Gandhi. It said: “When a big tree falls, the ground shakes.”
The Delhi Police on Saturday asked Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury to submit his “devices” after he lodged a complaint alleging that his Twitter account was hacked and denied that he used the phrase "when a big tree falls, ground shakes" along a photograph of Rajiv Gandhi on his Twitter handle while paying tribute to the former prime minister on his death anniversary.
“ Thank you @adhirrcinc for bringing the issue to our notice. It's requested that you submit us the devices which you claim to have been hacked for conducting the investigation on the basis of the complaint made by you. Looking forward to your co-operation. Legal action is being taken,” the Delhi Police tweeted sharing a copy of the complaint.
The controversial tweet was posted on Chowdhury’s official Twitter handle around 11.27am on Saturday. An infographic in the tweet had a statement attributed to Rajiv Gandhi. It said: “When a big tree falls, the ground shakes.”
The statement was reportedly made by Rajiv Gandhi when anti-Sikh riots broke out after the assassination of his mother, former prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1984. Opposition leaders have on multiple occasions alleged that the statement was made to justify the anti-Sikh riots. The riots led to nearly 3,000 people dead across the country.
The post was removed soon after controversy sparked.
BJP leaders were quick to grab the opportunity of using screenshots of the tweet to attack the Congress leadership. The party's IT cell head Amit Malviya said, "Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has decided to call a spade a spade. Gandhis be damned."
Later, Chowdhury wrote on Twitter, "The tweet against my name in the Twitter account has nothing to do with my own observation. A malicious campaign is propagated by those forces inimical to me."
An FIR has been lodged at the South Avenue Police Station in New Delhi, he said.
In the police complaint, the Congress leader said, "Today, an unscrupulous, biased and a content tainted with absolute malafide was posted on my Twitter account when I was busy with the party programme on the dais and did not carry my mobile phone."
"The content posted smacks of malice and I believe that my Twitter account had been hacked by some wrongdoers for the reasons best known to them.
"I, hereby urge your good-self to take immediate cognizance of this instant complaint and please enquire and seal the IP address and take appropriate action of cybercrime at the earliest in occurrence with law and oblige," he said.
Chowdhury, the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee president, said it was a cybercrime.
“My Twitter handle was hacked. Why should I make such statements? I am going to lodge a complaint with the police in Kolkata,” Chowdhury told HT.
