A Noida woman was booked on Thursday for making purportedly objectionable remarks about Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a social media video during the youth protests at Jantar Mantar, The Indian Express quoted the police as saying.
A first information report has been registered against 25-year-old Ruchika Singh under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to intentional insult to provoke breach of peace, statements conducing to public mischief and defamation, The Times of India reported.
The FIR was based on a complaint by Ghaziabad resident Smriti Singh. In her complaint, Smriti Singh alleged that Ruchika Singh used purportedly abusive and objectionable language about Modi on social media which not only “undermine the dignity of the constitutional office”, “but also deliberately intended to spread hatred and disrupt public peace”, The Indian Express reported.
This came two days after the Delhi Police registered a first information report against X for allegedly objectionable and defamatory posts about Modi on the social media platform.
A case was registered at the Special Cell’s Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations unit under charges of criminal intimidation, public mischief and defamation.
The police had also written to X seeking that the “derogatory, malicious and defamatory content” about “constitutional heads” be removed from the platform.
It had asked the social media platform to provide details of the account from which the content was posted, including the holder’s name, address, contact details and email ID. The police also asked for login and logout details along with date and time stamps.
It further directed the platform to preserve details related to the posts or videos for future investigation and provide a certificate under Section 63(4) of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam. The section requires any electronic record submitted as evidence in court to be accompanied by a certificate.
On Monday, The Indian Express reported that notices had been issued to three social media platforms directing them to take down purportedly objectionable content about Modi. The posts were being identified by the police’s social media monitoring team.
The Delhi Police had identified 450 social media accounts that shared alleged deepfake videos and content generated using artificial intelligence during the protests, the newspaper reported.
The content was posted online during the youth protests led by the Cockroach Janta Party political campaign to demand the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan, the Union education minister at the time, over the alleged irregularities in the conduct of competitive exams.
On July 20, thousands joined the protest in Delhi two days after the police forcibly took activist Sonam Wangchuk, who had been on a hunger strike for three weeks, to hospital. Their march to Parliament was met with a crackdown by the police. Dozens were injured as the police used lathis, fired tear gas shells and pellet gun against the demonstrators.
The police action turbocharged the agitation, which spread to other parts of the country.
Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.
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