The Noida police booked Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor, journalists Rajdeep Sardesai, Vinod K Jose (Caravan), Mrinal Pande and others for sedition on Thursday. An FIR lodged at the Sector-20 police station stated that they were booked for tweeting and spreading fake news pertaining to the death of a farmer during the tractor rally on January 26, 2021.
The complainant accused them of inciting riots through their social media posts on Tuesday. They sought an inquiry into the matter and demanded that the social media posts be removed.
As per the FIR, the police registered a case against them based on a complaint by Arpit Mishra, 35. The FIR also names Zafar Agha, the Group Editor-in-Chief of National Herald, and Ananth Nath, the Editor of Caravan.
Interestingly, the case has been filed in UP, although the jurisdiction for the case would be Delhi. A legal expert told TNM that since the sections used are cognizable offences, the UP police may be trying to show that the case can be filed anywhere and will then be transferred to the jurisdictional police.
The journalists and politicians have been booked under sections 153A [Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony], 153B [Imputations, assertions prejudicial to national-integration], 295A [Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs], 298 [Uttering, words, etc., with deliberate intent to wound the religious feelings of any person], 504 [Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace], 506 [Criminal Intimidation], 505(2) [Statements conducing to public mischief], 124-A [Sedition], 34 [Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention] and 120-B [Punishment of criminal conspiracy] of the Indian Penal Code and section 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
“There were many important personalities during the Republic Day parade,” the FIR said. “But the accused tweeted to malign the image of the police and the security forces.” It claimed that the accused have carried out such actions to affect the country’s peace and security earlier as well.
