NEW DELHI, May 25: The Delhi Police on Tuesday served notices to two Congress leaders and social media experts Rohan Gupta and MV Rajeev Gowda in the alleged ‘Congress toolkit’ case and asked them to join the probe, official sources said.
The official confirmed that the enquiry into the complaint was in its preliminary stage and no FIR has been filed so far. The police official also said the notices are not fresh.
“These notices were served around 8-9 days ago based on a complaint received from the Congress party. They were asked to join the probe so that it could help us in carrying the investigation forward,” the officials said.
Earlier on Monday, Delhi Police searched Twitter India’s offices in New Delhi and Gurgaon and sent a notice to Twitter India asking it to clarify as to why BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra’s tweet on a ‘toolkit’ allegedly made by Congress to defame the government and the prime minister Narendra Modi was tagged as “manipulated media” by the social media platform.
On the Delhi police allegedly raiding the Twitter India offices in Delhi and Gurgaon on Monday, the official said it was only to serve a notice to the social media giant as a part of routine process. “This was necessitated as we wanted to ascertain who is the right person to serve a notice, as replies by Twitter India MD have been very ambiguous,” Delhi Police PRO Chinmay Biswal said.
The Congress and the BJP have been at loggerheads since the past week over a purported ‘toolkit’ which the BJP claims was made by Congress to diminish the image of the Prime Minister and criticise government’s efforts to contain the pandemic. The Congress claims that the alleged ‘toolkit’ being tweeted by the BJP was fake.
(Manas Dasgupta)