UP assault case: Ghaziabad Police sends notice to Twitter India MD

The Ghaziabad Police has sent a notice to Twitter India Managing Director Manish Maheshwari, asking him to join a probe in connection with the case involving an assault on a Muslim man here earlier this month, officials said Friday.

He has been asked to appear at the Loni Border police station here within seven days to get his statement recorded in the case in which an FIR was lodged against the social media giant also, a senior police official said.

"Manish Maheshwari is the MD of Twitter India and was sent a notice yesterday under CrPC section 166 seeking his cooperation in the probe. Some other details have been sought from him and he has been given seven days' time to appear at the local police station," Superintendent of Police (Ghaziabad Rural) Iraj Raja told reporters Friday.

The Ghaziabad Police had on June 15 booked Twitter Inc, Twitter Communications India, news website The Wire, journalists Mohammed Zubair and Rana Ayyub, besides Congress leaders Salman Nizami, Maskoor Usmani, Shama Mohamed and writer Saba Naqvi.

They were booked over the circulation of a video in which the elderly man, Abdul Shamad Saifi, claims he was allegedly thrashed by some young men who also asked him to chant 'Jai Shri Ram' on June 5. The police claim the video was shared to cause communal unrest.

The police have maintained the assault took place because the accused were unhappy about the 'tabeez' (amulets) sold to them by Saifi, a resident of adjoining Bulandshahr district, and ruled out any communal angle in the case.

In the video that triggered a nation-wide reaction, Saifi purportedly says he was attacked by some young men and forced to chant 'Jai Shri Ram'. But, according to the district police, he has not made any such allegations in his FIR lodged on June 7, two days after the incident.

The June 15 FIR states that the Ghaziabad Police had issued a statement with facts of the incident but despite that the accused did not remove the video from their Twitter handles.

The police had also clarified that those who attacked Saifi included Hindu as well as Muslim men and the incident was a result of personal issues between them and not a communal one, it said.

"Besides this, Twitter Inc and Twitter Communications India did not take any measures to remove their tweets," it added.

The FIR has been lodged under sections 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot), 153A (promoting enmity between groups on ground of religion, class etc), 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious belief) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.

The Ghaziabad Police has so far arrested nine people, including key accused Parvesh Gujjar, in the case, according to officials.