Ghaziabad Attack: Uttar Pradesh Police Registers FIR Against Twitter, Md. Zubair, The Wire, Rana Ayyub Among Others

An FIR has been registered by the Uttar Pradesh Police against social media platform Twitter, News website The Wire along with Alt news co-founder Mohammed Zubair, Congress politicians Shama Mohamed, Salman Nizami and Maskoor Usmani, Journalists Rana Ayyub and Saba Naqvi for allegedly sharing a video on Twitter, of assault of an elderly Muslim man in Ghaziabad and giving it a communal colour without verifying the details.

The FIR has been registered under Sections 153 (provoking riots), 153A (promoting enmity between religious groups), 295A (insulting religious beliefs), 505 (statements inducing public mischief) & 120B (punishment of criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and has named Twitter Inc. & Twitter Communications Pvt. Ltd. as it failed to take down the tweets and allegedly allowed the video to go viral.

This comes in the backdrop of an elderly Muslim man's claim in a video that his beard was cut off and he was forced to chant "Vande Mataram" and "Jai Shri Ram". However, the Uttar Pradesh Police, later on, ruled out any "communal angle" and said that Sufi Abdul Samad, the elderly man, was attacked by six men, as they were unhappy over the amulets he had sold them.

What does the FIR state?

The FIR states that a video of an elderly man was circulated by few people on their social media handles, in which, some mischievous elements could be seen beating up an elderly man named Abdul Samad & they were forcefully cutting his beard and they forced him to chant "Jai Shri Ram" and "Vande Mataram".

Further, naming the aforementioned people, the FIR alleges that they circulated the video of the incident on their Twitter handles, without checking and inquiring into the veracity of the video related to the elderly man and that they gave the video, a communal angle as they intended to incite communal hatred between the religious communities and wanted to disturb the public order.

The FIR also states that the views expressed while sharing the videos weren't individual opinions, rather they were shared with a clear intention and the sharing of the video indicates a criminal conspiracy and they intended to incite communal hatred between the Hindu and Muslim communities.

Apart from this, the FIR alleges that upon a preliminary investigation undertaken by the Ghaziabad police, it was found that the people in the video who were beating the elderly man were known to Abdul Samad and they were doing so because the elderly had allegedly sold them a Tabeez (amulet) and thereafter, claiming that it did not work, as promised by Abdul, they beat him up.

The FIR also states that the Police have arrested three persons related to this case and it was found that the mischievous elements belong to both, Hindu & Muslim communities and the Ghaziabad Police issued a press statement clarifying all these facts.

However, the FIR further alleges, despite the clarification that it was a personal dispute between the parties and the accused are from Hindu and Muslim communities, the accused persons, continued to incite communal hatred by way of sharing the videos and due to this, the fake news with communal angle spread on a large scale.

The FIR also alleges that the fake news has ignited the feeling of fear in the minds of the people of Uttar Pradesh and the accused person, intentionally spread the fake news and since they have an influential presence on social media, they have a responsibility as well.

Lastly, the FIR states that this is not the first time that they have tried to peddle fake and misleading news on social media and that they all, without verifying the truth of the video, shared the video on their social media handles.