The Uttar Pradesh Police has lodged an FIR against two Twitter India officials – MD Manish Maheshwari and News Partnerships head Amrita Tripathi, over a distorted map of India shown on its website. The FIR was lodged in Khurja Nagar police station of Uttar Pradesh’s Bulandshahr district based on a complaint filed by an office-bearer of right-wing outfit Bajrang Dal.
Bajrang Dal’s western UP convenor Praveen Bhati said in his complaint that the world map on the Twitter website does not show Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir as parts of India. He said that the act has hurt the sentiments of Indians.
The Twitter officials have been booked under Indian Penal Code section 505 (2) (public mischief). The charges under Information Technology Act section 74 (publication for fraudulent purpose) have also been invoked in the case.
The map displayed on Twitter’s website showed Ladakh as a part of China and Jammu and Kashmir as a separate country. The map was noticed yesterday leading to a massive uproar on social media with several people demanding a ban on the microblogging site, which led to a trend #BanTwitterInIndia. Twitter removed the map from its website following the uproar.
This is the second time that the Twitter India MD has been named in a chargesheet. Earlier, an FIR was registered against Manish Maheshwari in the Loni assault case in which a video of an elderly Muslim man’s assault was shared on Twitter with a religious spin. The UP Police had claimed that there was no hate angle and alleged that Twitter failed to tag the video as manipulated media.
Manish Maheshwari had approached Karnataka High Court following summons by the UP Police and secured anticipatory bail in the case.