A team from the Delhi Police Special Cell arrived at Twitter India offices in Delhi and Gurugram on Monday evening to give notice to the microblogging platform, classifying it as a “manipulation” of a tweet by BJP leader Sambit Patra on “Congress Toolkit”.
Government sources said this was necessary as the police wanted to find out who was the right person to give notice, as the replies from the MD of Twitter India were very vague, government sources said.
Sources said that when the Delhi Police issued a notice to Twitter today there was a lot of uproar, the sources said that this is the third notice given by the Delhi Police to Twitter. Sources said that instead of cooperating with law enforcement, Twitter has tried to play the role of a victim by unfairly overplaying a routine process.
An official said that the team reached the offices of the social site at Lado Sarai and Gurugram and sought response to the notice to the site on a complaint regarding the alleged Covid-19 ‘toolkit’.
“Delhi Police is investigating a complaint seeking clarification in relation to classifying a tweet related to Twitter as‘ manipulative ’. Twitter appears to have some information that we are not aware of, based on which they have classified it as such. This information is relevant to the inquiry. The Special Cell investigating is trying to find out the truth. Twitter, which claimed to know the underlying truth, should clarify it, ”a Delhi Police statement said.
Twitter appears to have some information that the police are not aware of. Delhi Police PRO Chinmay Biswal said that this information is relevant to the investigation.
However, the police refused to disclose the contents of the complaint or the identity of the complainant. The BJP has accused the Congress of creating a ‘toolkit’ that seeks to tarnish the country’s and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s image by calling the Coronavirus new strain “India Strain” or “Modi Strain”.
However, the Congress has denied the charge and claimed that the BJP is promoting a fake ‘toolkit’ to discredit it. Last week, Twitter described a tweet by Patra on the alleged ‘toolkit’ as “media molestation”. Twitter states that it can “label tweets that contain media (video, audio and images) that have been misleadingly altered or coined”.
Biswal said the Delhi Police is investigating a complaint in relation to which a clarification has been sought from Twitter regarding classifying a tweet by Patra as “manipulative”. “It appears that Twitter has some information that we are not aware of, on the basis of which they have classified it (Patra’s tweet). This information is relevant to the inquiry. The Special Cell investigating is trying to find out the truth. Twitter, which claimed to know the underlying truth, should clarify it, ”he said.
BJP leaders including Patra have made several tweets to attack the Congress over the alleged ‘toolkit’. The Congress had filed a police complaint on May 19, demanding a case against BJP President JP Nadda, Union Minister Smriti Irani, BJP General Secretary BL Santosh and Patra for alleged forgery of documents.
The Chhattisgarh unit of NSUI, the student wing of the Congress, also filed a complaint against Patra and former Chief Minister Raman Singh for allegedly “forging” the letterhead of the AICC Research Department and printing “false and fabricated” material on it. Based on the complaint, a case has been registered against Patra and Singh at the Civil Lines police station in Raipur.