Mumbai youth arrested on charges of promoting enmity through his tweets

The police have arrested a 25-year-old man from Mumbai's suburb of Bandra over his tweets that were deemed offensive and intended to promote enmity between different groups, an official said on Wednesday.

The accused, Rizwan Toufique Rahman Shaikh, a resident of KC Marg in Bandra (West), was apprehended by the Unit -9 of the Mumbai crime branch on Tuesday night, he said.

Officials of the Crime Intelligence Unit, which monitors the social media content, had noticed that one Twitter handle @RizwanS65688516 had posted objectionable messages, the official said.

Crime branch officials have been closely monitoring various social media platforms after suspended Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Nupur Sharma's controversial remarks against Prophet Mohammad in May and the recent murder of a tailor at Udaipur in Rajasthan, he said.

While monitoring the specific handle, CIU officials found the account holder had warned people not to speak against Islam and referred to the consequences faced by the Udaipur tailor, Kanhaiya Lal, who was headed by two men over a social media post, the official said.

After observing these tweets and some retweets, the CIU officials filed a complaint against an unidentified social media user at the Azad Maidan Police Station in South Mumbai, he said.

Accordingly, an FIR under sections 153(A) (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc, and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) and 295 (A) (Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of the IPC was registered.

With the help of technical inputs, the crime branch traced the location of the Twitter account holder and subsequently nabbed Shaikh, he said.

After interrogation, he was placed under arrest and produced before a local court which sent him in police custody till Friday, the official said, adding further probe was on.