Delhi Police raids Twitter India offices over 'toolkit row'

The Delhi Police's Special Cell teams raided the offices of Twitter India in Delhi and Gurgaon on Monday evening in connection with the probe into the alleged 'COVID toolkit' matter, officials said. Two teams of Special Cell were at the Twitter India offices located in Delhi's Lado Sarai and Gurgaon, on the outskirts of the national capital

New Delhi: Hours after sending a notice to Twitter over a "manipulated media" tag used on tweets alleging a Congress "toolkit" against the Central government, a team of Delhi Police Special cell is carrying out a search at the Twitter India offices in Lado Sarai, Delhi and Gurgaon.

Earlier in the day, Delhi Police sent a notice to Twitter, seeking an explanation from the microblogging site on what grounds it tagged BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra's tweet on the alleged Congress toolkit designed to target the Central government as 'manipulated media'.

The Delhi Police Special Cell asked Twitter to explain the rationale and share all the information on how it described the toolkit as manipulated media.

"The Delhi Police is enquiring into a complaint in which clarification is sought from Twitter on the classification of a tweet by Sambit Patra as 'manipulative'. It appears that Twitter has some information that is not known to us on the basis of which they have classified it as such," the Police said in the notice sent to Twitter.

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

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Earlier, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had written to Twitter objecting to it tagging some of the posts on an alleged Congress "toolkit" against the Central government, as "manipulated media".

It asked Twitter to remove the tag as the matter is pending investigation before a law enforcement agency.

The BJP, on May 18, slammed Congress for an alleged "toolkit on COVID-19 pandemic".

Addressing the media, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra claimed that the toolkit has instructions for social media volunteers of Congress to call the new COVID-19 mutant the "Indian strain" or "Modi strain" against the World Health Organization's (WHO) instructions.

However, the Congress denied the allegations and wrote to Delhi Police Commissioner seeking registration of FIR against BJP President JP Nadda, Union Minister Smriti Irani, party spokesperson Sambit Patra, party leader BL Santhosh and others for alleging that they had shared "forged and fabricated documents with the intent to create communal disharmony and civil unrest" and to "divert attention from Modi government's failure in providing necessary aid to people amidst the current pandemic".

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The complaint was made after remarks by BJP leaders on social media with the hashtag #CongressToolkitExposed in which they accused Congress of spreading "false, negative news and stirring up discontent".

(With inputs from agencies)