New Delhi, September 11 : A formal complaint has been registered here with National Human Rights Commission and Delhi Police against social networking site Twitter and some Hindu right wing leaders including Praveen Togadia and Subramanian Swamy for some ‘offensive’ posts ‘endangering’ law and order in Uttar Pradesh.
Young
law graduate and activist Shehzad Poonawalla on Monday filed the
written complaint with the NHRC and Delhi Police citing a long list of
such offensive tweets.
“Since
the 8th of September 2013 (and perhaps earlier), the following hashtags
i.e. #UPriots , #Muzaffarnagar and the like, have been continuously
trending on the popular social networking website Twitter…Several of the
tweets appearing under the said trends are not only distasteful and
offensive but clearly are violative of several provisions of the Indian
Penal Code, 1860 and the IT Act, 2000. Also given the sensitive
situation prevailing in Uttar Pradesh on the back of communal clashes in
Muzaffarnagar which has already lead to the death of over 26 people,
these tweets pose a real and imminent threat to the prevailing law and
order situation in the state of Uttar Pradesh and across India. Given
that every Indian has a basic human right to live in peace and security,
these tweets are a serious a violation of the said right. Not only
those who post these tweets but also Twitter Inc. is liable for the
above violation as it has made no effort whatsoever to delete the
illegal, offensive tweets nor has it blocked the accounts of those users
making such tweets,” Poonawalla wrote in the complaint to NHRC and
Delhi Police and listed several such tweets.
The
complainant says all the offensive tweets attract Section 66A (a) and
(b) i.e. Punishment for sending offensive messages through communication
service, etc, are in flagrant violation of section 295(A) of IPC 1860
as they deliberately, intentionally and maliciously outraged the
religious feelings of Muslims by written words- Cognizable and
Non-Bailable. Moreover, the tweets violate Section 153A (a) as they
promote enmity between different groups on grounds of religion and 153B
as they make imputations, assertions prejudicial to
national-integration- Cognizable and non-Bailable.
Poonawalla
in his complaint listed some tweeters including @Brain_hunt,
@Swamy39,@Chotebhai1, @AMIT JAINDB, @InternetHindus, @Hiindus,
@S_hindurashtra, @GuptaChiranjeev, @HazirJawab, @KaliaUstad,
@paidmediahatesh, @biswajeetdash and said their identities can be
established by means of tracking their respective I.P addresses and as
they have violated the provisions of IPC, 1860 and IT Act, 2000 they
must be booked for the commission of the above offences.
He
urged the NHRC to direct the registration of an FIR in the instant case
against Twitter, Inc and the listed known and unknown persons for
violation of various sections of IPC,1860 and ITAct, 2000 and to direct
the Department of Telecom to take necessary steps to filter, screen and
remove all the illegal content on all social networking platforms that
is likely to prejudicially affect the minority community.