Ghaziabad Police send notice to Twitter India MD, ask him to join probe in UP assault case

Ghaziabad, June 18  

The Ghaziabad Police has sent a notice to the Twitter India Managing Director, asking him to join a probe in the case involving an assault on a Muslim man here earlier this month, officials said Friday.

Manish Maheshwari has been asked to appear at the Loni Border police station here within seven days to get his statement recorded in the case in which an FIR was lodged against the social media giant also, a police official said.

The Ghaziabad Police Tuesday booked Twitter, news website The Wire, besides some journalists and Congress leaders over the circulation of a video in which the elderly man says he was thrashed and asked to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’ on June 5. The police claim the video was shared to cause communal unrest.

They have maintained the incident took place because the accused were unhappy about the ‘tabeez’ (amulets) sold to them by the man, Abdul Shamad Saifi. 

The FIR names Twitter Inc, Twitter Communications India, news website The Wire, journalists Mohammed Zubair and Rana Ayyub, Congress leaders Salman Nizami, Maskoor Usmani, Shama Mohamed and writer Saba Naqvi. 

In the video that triggered a nationwide reaction, Saifi purportedly says he was attacked by some young men and forced to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’. But, according to the district police, he has not made any such allegations in his FIR lodged on June 7, two days after the incident.

The Ghaziabad Police has so far arrested nine people in the case. PTI