Twitter India MD grilled over BJP's 'Congress toolkit' case: Report
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New Delhi: Twitter India's chief was questioned by Delhi Police over BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra's tweet tagged as "manipulated media". Manish Maheshwari, Managing Director of Twitter in India, was questioned by a Delhi Police Special Cell team in Bengaluru on May 31 as per a report by NDTV.
According to the sources, the questioning took place a week after the Delhi Police visited the offices of Twitter in Delhi and Gurgaon after serving two notices over the microblogging platform's connection with the probe into a complaint about the alleged 'COVID toolkit.
After finding the replies of the Managing Director "ambiguous", the police said they went to Twitter India's offices to hand the third notice.
Twitter had been asked to explain why BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra's tweet on May 18, which had screenshots of what he called a "Congress toolkit" aimed at discrediting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the government's handling of Covid, were labelled "manipulated media".
The tag emerged after Congress wrote to Twitter saying the alleged "toolkit" was fake and that it had filed FIRs against BJP leaders who had tweeted the documents.
Details of the questioning are emerging at a time when Twitter faces charges including inciting communal hate over posts on an assault on a Muslim man in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad on June 5.
In the case filed on Tuesday night, Twitter has been accused of not removing "misleading" content linked to the incident. The charges it faces include "intent to a riot, promoting enmity and criminal conspiracy".
The police FIR charges Twitter, several journalists and Congress leaders for inciting "communal sentiments" with posts sharing the man's allegations.
The information has also emerged a day after Twitter lost the safe harbour immunity in India after it failed to comply with the new IT rules, which requires it to appoint key officers in India.
Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said Twitter was given "multiple opportunities to comply" but it chose the path of "deliberate defiance".