Twitter India managing director Manish Maheshwari will appear before the Ghaziabad cops in connection with a video. Victim of a purported hate crime. The company had denied any role in the video going viral Maheshwari offered to join the probe through video conference. But the Ghaziabad Police sent fresh summons on Tuesday asking the Twitter India MD to appear before it.
"Clarification given by you is inappropriate. Being the MD of Twitter in India, you are the representative of the company. Therefore, you are bound by the Indian law to cooperate in the investigation," the notice sent by the police said. Maheshwari is expected to visit Loni Kotwali along with his lawyer at 10.30.
It further said that the cops have prepared a list of 11 questions for Maheshwari, including the one about failure to remove the controversial video. The police will also ask about the number of complaints against the video and what action the micro-blogging platform has taken. The police on June 17 sent a set of summons over to the social media company over a video that went viral and seemed to show a hate crime targeting a Muslim man in Ghaziabad and was amplified as such, but which the state's policy has subsequently claimed was not a communal incident.
HT has seen a copy of the summons, which cites Section 41A of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). Seeking the appearance of a person who has been named in a complaint. This section gives cops more authority to demand the presence of a person. The first notice was sent citing Section 160 of the criminal procedure code, which allows the police the ability to question any person who they believe may be aware of facts related to a complaint.
The video being probed by the Ghaziabad cops shows a 72-year-old Muslim man being beaten up and his attackers chopping his beard. The police said the incident was not communal but a personal dispute of the victim with the suspects. However, the victim's family has alleged a religious angle. The video surfaced on June 14 and a complaint against Twitter. Loni Border police station lodged several journalists on June 15.
