In the Twitter India MD’s interrogation in the Ghaziabad fake hate video case, the Karnataka High Court on Friday said Ghaziabad Police can interrogate Twitter India MD Manish Maheshwari under section 160 of the CrPC. The Karnataka High Court had earlier restrained the Uttar Pradesh Police from taking any coercive action against the microblogging site’s top employee in India in the Ghaziabad hate video case.
The UP police had sought Twitter India MD’s personal appearance as part of its probe into a communally sensitive video uploaded by a user on Twitter platform. The Karnataka HC said the notice was issued by malafide. The single bench of Justice G Narendar said that the notice under Section 41(A) CrPC should be treated as Section under 160 of CrPC, allowing Ghaziabad police to question Maheshwari through virtual mode, at his office or his residential address in Bengaluru. The case pertains to the Ghaziabad fake hate video in which some prominent personalities claimed on Twitter that an old man Abdul Samad Saifi was assaulted in Uttar Pradesh with his beard being forcibly cut and was also asked to chant slogans of Jai Shri Ram. Calling them out for giving a communal spin to the incident, the police stressed that Twitter and Twitter India did not take any steps to remove the contentious tweets. The case in question was registered at the Loni Border Police Station on June 15.
