On Monday evening, a team from the Delhi Police Special Cell arrived at the Twitter India offices in Delhi and Gurugram to conduct searches in connection with the microblogging site classifying a tweet by BJP leader Sambit Patra on “Congress toolkit” as “manipulated.”
An official said the team went to the social media site’s offices in Lado Sarai and Gurugram to get a response to its earlier notice to the site about a query about the suspected Covid-19’toolkit.
“Delhi Police is enquiring into a complaint in which clarification is sought from the Twitter regarding the classification of a tweet by Sambit Patra as ‘manipulative’. It appears that Twitter has some information which is not known to us on the basis of which they have classified it as such. This information is relevant to the enquiry. Special Cell which is conducting the enquiry wants to find out the truth. Twitter which has claimed to know the underlying truth should clarify,” a statement by the Delhi Police said.
It suggests that Twitter has details that the police may not have. According to Delhi Police PRO Chinmoy Biswal, this detail is important to the investigation.
The police, on the other hand, declined to reveal the contents of the case or the complainant’s name. The BJP has accused the Congress of developing a “toolkit” to smear the country and Prime Minister Narendra Modi by referring to the latest coronavirus strain as “India strain” or “Modi strain.”
The Congress, on the other hand, has dismissed the charge, claiming that the BJP is spreading a false “toolkit” to discredit it. Patra’s tweet about the supposed “toolkit” was labelled as “manipulated publicity” by Twitter last week. Twitter has stated that it can mark Tweets that contain deceptively altered or manipulated media (videos, audio, and images).
According to Biswal, the Delhi Police is investigating a report in which a clarification from Twitter has been requested about Patra’s description of a tweet as “manipulative. It seems that Twitter has some facts that we don’t have, and they’ve classified it (Patra’s tweet) as such based on that information. This detail is pertinent to the investigation. The Special Cell in charge of the investigation needs to know the facts. Twitter should explain what it claims to know about the underlying facts he said
BJP politicians, including Patra, have attacked the Congress in a series of tweets about the alleged “toolkit.” The Congress filed a police complaint on May 19 demanding the registration of cases against BJP leader J P Nadda, Union minister Smriti Irani, BJP general secretary B L Santosh, and Patra for suspected paper forgery.
Patra and Raman Singh were both accused of “forging” the AICC Research Department letterhead and printing “fake and fabricated” material on it, according to the Chhattisgarh unit of the Congress’ students wing NSUI. A case has been filed against Patra and Singh at Raipur’s Civil Lines police station based on the complaint.
