Days after a video of a man claiming he was thrashed and his beard was chopped off went viral, the Ghaziabad police on Tuesday registered an FIR against 9 entities including Twitter India, some journalists and congress leaders for flaring communal sentiments. The incident took place in Ghaziabad’s Loni.
In the FIR Ghaziabad Police noted that there is no communal angle to the incident and Twitter did nothing to prevent the video from going viral as it could have led to communal violence. The police have booked Twitter, Twitter Communications India Pvt, The Wire, Rana Ayyub, Mohammad Zubair, Dr. Shama Mohamed, Saba Naqvi, Maskoor Usmani and Salman Nizami.
“There is no communal angle to the incident in Loni where a man was thrashed and his beard was chopped off. The following entities- The Wire, Rana Ayyub, Mohammad Zubair, Dr. Shama Mohamed, Saba Naqvi, Maskoor Usmani and Salman Nizami- without checking the fact, started giving communal color to the incident on Twitter and suddenly they started spreading messages to disrupt the peace and bring differenced between the religious communities,” note Ghaziabad Police in the FIR.
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Further accusing Twitter, the police added, “Twitter did nothing to prevent the video from getting viral”. The complaint against these nine entities including twitter was filed on Tuesday.
Detailing about the incident, the Police said that the accused and the victim knew each other for a long time. A scuffle took place after the victim sold an amulet to the accused promising prosperity in his life. But the accused claimed that it harmed his family.
According to FIR, “The victim Abdul Samad Sufi and the accused have known each other for a long time. The victim sold a tabeez to the key accused with the promise that it will bring him prosperity. However, the accused claimed that it had an adverse effect on his family and got angry and thrashed the victim.”
Among those named in the FIR, Rana Ayyub and Saba Naqvi are senior journalists and Zubair is an author at fact checking website AltNews. Meanwhile, Dr. Shama Mohamed and Salman Nizami are members of Congress.