Staff Reporter
TextEditorThe Delhi Police lodged an FIR against two Twitter handles for allegedly inciting enmity, hatred and ill-will between communities, police officers said on Monday.
DCP (North West) Usha Rangnani said that the two accounts, against which the FIR was lodged, belonged to Article 14, a news portal, and Meer Faisal, a journalist with The Hindustan Gazette.
Mr. Faisal in his tweet on Sunday had said that he and a photojournalist were allegedly thrashed because of their “Muslim identity”.
The journalist had claimed, through his tweet, that communal slurs were shouted at him at the event, which he had gone to cover. He further said in his tweet that he was called objectionable names and attacked for his identity.
On Sunday, a mob had allegedly assaulted journalists in north-west Delhi’s Burari ground while they were covering the Hindu Mahapanchayat event. The journalists were allegedly waylaid by a mob, which assaulted them, snatched their phones and hurled communal slurs at them.
According to the police, permission was denied for Sunday’s event, which was organised by the founder of Save India Foundation, Preet Singh, who has been named in one of the FIRs in connection with the mob violence.
The journalists claimed that they were interviewing people when a group of men waylaid them and asked them to show their IDs. When the mob eventually assaulted them, police personnel on the ground escorted them in a PCR van to the police station.
DCP (Northwest) Usha Rangnani had said in a Twitter post that some reporters, on their own free will, in order to evade the crowd, which was getting agitated by their presence, sat in the PCR van stationed at the venue and opted to proceed to the police station for security reasons. “No one was detained. Due police protection was provided,” police said.
This is the fourth FIR in the case. The first two FIRs were registered on the complaint of two journalists. The third was lodged against Yati Narsinghanand and Preet Singh for allegedly giving hate speeches at the event.
