The Uttar Pradesh police has registered a First Information Report (FIR) against the Managing Director (MD) of Twitter India Manish Maheshwari and Head of News Partnerships Amrita Tripathi for a map showing the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh as separate from India. Right-wing Bajrang Dal leader Praveen Bhati has lodged a complaint at Khurja nagar police station in Bulandshahr.
WATCH: I got to know that the Indian map has been distorted and presented wrongly on Twitter’s website. It’s an anti national act and hence I have lodged an FIR. The accused must be arrested: Praveen Bhati, the man who lodged FIR against #Twitter officials in Bulandshahr pic.twitter.com/HlyhEIRpsd
— Prashant Kumar (@scribe_prashant) June 29, 2021
UP Police has registered FIR under Section 505 (2) of IPC (statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill will between classes) and Section 74 of IT Amendment Act 2008 (Publication for any fraudulent or unlawful purpose).
https://twitter.com/Benarasiyaa/status/1409710287423361025/
A distorted map of India appeared on the career section of the twitter website under the header ‘Tweep Life’. Later, the map was removed after outrage on social media and netizen demanded for strict action against the hate-spreading thoughts.
The Indian government has also warned the United States based company twitter over this incident and asked it to follow the rules of IT guidelines. The government had said that such an attempt not only brings disrepute to twitter, but also raises questions about its neutrality and impartiality as an intermediary.
This is not the first time that twitter has misrepresented the map of India. Earlier in October 2020, twitter had labelled the Indian territory of Leh in Ladakh as part of the China.
Meanwhile, twitter’s Interim Grievances Officer of India Dharmendra Chatur quit from the post and California’s new Jeremy Kessel is appointed as India’s Grievance Redressal Officer. However, the appointment of the new officer does not meet the requirements of the new IT rules, which explicitly mandate key officers to be resident in India.