Twitter India MD Manish Maheshwari likely to join Ghaziabad assault case probe
The social media giant had conveyed to the police that Maheshwari was available for questioning via video call but the cops sent fresh summons on Tuesday, asking the Twitter India MD to appear before it.
FollowTwitter India's Managing Director Manish Maheshwari is expected to appear in person before the Ghaziabad Police on Thursday in connection with a probe related to the assault of an elderly Muslim man here recently, officials said.
The Twitter India MD, who lives in Bengaluru in Karnataka, was issued notice by the Ghaziabad Police on June 21 and asked to report at its Loni Border police station at 10.30 am on Thursday to get his statement recorded in the case, the officials added.
“He did not reach the police station at the given time and is expected to reach here by noon,” Circle Officer (Loni), Atul Kumar Sonkar, told PTI.
The Ghaziabad Police is expected to quiz Maheshwari on failure to remove the controversial video which reportedly showed a Muslim man being assaulted and his beard being cut off by the accused.
The Ghaziabad Police had on June 15 booked Twitter Inc, Twitter Communications India, news website The Wire, journalists Mohammed Zubair and Rana Ayyub, besides Congress leaders Salman Nizami, Maskoor Usmani, Shama Mohamed and writer Saba Naqvi.
They were booked over the circulation of a video in which the elderly man, Abdul Shamad Saifi, had claimed that he was forced to chant “Jai Shri Ram” and “Vande Mataram” though police ruled out the communal angle, saying the accused — both Hindus and Muslims — attacked the man after a dispute over amulets. The police will also ask about the number of complaints against the video and what action the micro-blogging platform has taken.
Twitter India had been ordered to delete such posts but initially failed to do so. This week news agency PTI quoted sources as saying the company had "withheld" 50 tweets after receiving a legal request to do so. The sources said the tweets contained content related to the video clip.
"You couldn't remove certain tweets even after you were asked to by authorities. You understand Indian laws and are bound to follow them," the notice summoning Maheshwari said.
The Uttar Pradesh government has become the first to book Twitter in a criminal offence after the social media company has failed to comply so far with the new IT rules that had come into effect from May 26. Social media companies have to comply with the rules to get safe harbour protection and absence of the same exposes them to become liable for fake news, harassment and defamation on its platform.
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