Cong leaders get notice from Delhi Police in alleged toolkit case

Congress Research Department Chairman Rajeev Gowda and Rohan Gupta, Chairman Social Media department of the party were served notice by the Special Cell on May 21, the day when a similar notice was served to Twitter India.

New Delhi: Two Congress leaders, who filed a complaint against BJP leaders, have been served notice by the Delhi Police's Special Cell in connection with the alleged toolkit case.

Speaking to reporters, Rajeev Gowda said, "We have received a notice from Delhi Police on May 21, and we responded to it on May 22 stating that similar complaint has been filed in Chhattisgarh and police there has registered an FIR there, so we will proceed with the case there."

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His remarks came a day after the sleuths of the Special Cell arrived at the offices of Twitter India at Lado Sarai in south Delhi and in Haryana's Gurugram to serve notices. However, the offices of Twitter were found shut.

Aman Panwar, Advocate for Congress Party in the fake Toolkit case against BJP, told reporters, "First, even though on May 18 itself my clients filed a detailed complaint about the forgery committed by the BJP leaders to spread the fake Toolkit document, the Delhi Police failed to register an FIR."

Panwar said that thereafter my clients approached the Chhattisgarh Police and an FIR has been registered there.

"Now Delhi Police had no jurisdiction in the matter and we have given a written request to them to transfer our complaint and all documents to Chhattisgarh. Legally, Delhi Police cannot do any inquiry in the matter now," he added.

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On Monday, in a statement, Delhi Police said, "Delhi police team went to the Twitter office to serve a notice to Twitter, as a part of a 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 has launched a preliminary enquiry into the alleged Congress toolkit and had served notice to Manish Maheshwari on May 21. On Monday, Delhi Police had said, "We are inquiring into a complaint in which clarification is sought from Twitter regarding the classification of a tweet by (BJP spokesperson) Sambit Patra as 'manipulative'."

The statement said that "it appears that Twitter has some information which is not known to us based on which it has classified it as such".

"This information is relevant to the inquiry. The Special Cell, which is conducting the inquiry, wants to find out the truth. Twitter, which has claimed to know the underlying truth, should clarify," the statement added.

In its notice to Twitter India MD, Delhi Police had asked Maheshwari to be present in the office of the Special Cell on May 22 at 1 p.m. with all the relevant documents, but he did not turn up.

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Twitter had described the tweet of BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra as "manipulated media" last week. Patra had shared the alleged toolkit of the Congress, accusing it of trying to defame the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The alleged toolkit sparked a row last week as Congress approached Delhi Police to register an FIR against Patra, BJP national President J.P. Nadda, party leader B.L. Santhosh, Union Minister Smriti Irani and others for forgery.

The Chhattisgarh Police also registered a case on the complaint of NSUI over the alleged toolkit and recorded the statement of former Chief Minister Raman Singh and also served notice to Patra.

IANS

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