Nikita, Shantanu, Disha creators of document that led to Jan 26 violence, say Delhi Police

New Delhi: After announcing that they had got a local court to issue non-bailable warrants for the arrest of Mumbai-based lawyer and activist Nikita Jacob and Pune-based engineer Shantanu, the Delhi Police on Monday went on to claim that Jacob, Shantanu and 22-year-old climate activist Disha Ravi had created the alleged "toolkit" and shared it with Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg to mobilise online support for the farmers' protests.

The police also alleged that the toolkit was created with the email owned by Shantanu and that all other accused were editors of the public document.

"A woman named Puneet, who is based in Canada, connected these people to the pro-Khalistan Poetic Justice Foundation and through them, created the Toolkit Google documents titled 'Global Farmer Strike and Global Day of Action, January 26'," police said.

On January 11, Nikita and Shantanu attended the Zoom meeting organised by the Poetic Justice Foundation in which the modalities of the Global Day of Action were worked out, the police claimed.

They said based on the course of action decided in the Zoom meeting, Nikita, Shantanu, Disha along with others collaborated to draft the Toolkit document. The document that they drafted had secessionist and pro-Khalistani content embedded into it through links and texts, the police said.

The Delhi Police said both Jacob and Shantanu are yet to be found and that they are looking for them. Meanwhile, both of them have approached the Bombay High Court with their pleas for an anticipatory bail in the case, which has been listed for hearing today (Tuesday).

Joint Commissioner of Police (Cyber) Prem Nath said many screenshots of this toolkit document available on open source were investigated. "As soon as the investigation was able to fetch enough information, a search warrant was obtained from the court on February 9 against Nikita Jacob, one of the editors of the Toolkit Google document," the official said.

As per the Joint CP, a team headed by the investigating officer of the case reached Mumbai and conducted searches at her house on February 11 after due intimation to Mumbai Police. "Two laptops and an iPhone were found during the search along with several incriminating documents," the Joint CP said. "Based on the information gathered from searches at Nikita's house, separate teams were sent to Maharashtra's Beed district and Bengaluru, Karnataka, for investigation regarding Shantanu and Disha," police said, adding that they could not find Jacob when they went back to her home the next morning.

"In Bengaluru, the team examined Disha and was able to extract highly incriminating information from her phone," police said. Disha, who is associated with the environmental movement called Fridays for Future, sent the Toolkit document to Greta Thunberg on Telegram and also coaxed her to act on it, the police said.

"The main aim of the toolkit was to create misinformation and disaffection against the lawfully enacted government. The toolkit sought to artificially amplify the fake news and other falsehoods and also sought to precipitate action on January 26," police said.

Police sources said they are also probing the possible involvement of PJF member Mo Dhaliwal and one Peter Friedrich in the conspiracy to create the toolkit.

And while the police said they followed arrest and production procedures as per Section 70 of the CrPC, they refused to confirm whether a transit remand was obtained to move Disha Ravi to Delhi as is mandated by Section 80 of the CrPC — applicable in cases where the arrest is made outside the jurisdiction of the court that issued the warrant.

Meanwhile, Opposition leaders swooped down on the BJP government for "getting scared of" the country's youth activists and imprisoning them for airing their opinions.

The toolkit that Delhi Police is probing is a common tool used to organise public support online for any campaign or cause. The toolkit for which Disha has been arrested suggested hashtags, information on farm protests and important links to educate someone without basic knowledge of the issue. It did not have any mention of violence.