Plaint against BJP spokesperson for tweeting fake photos of Basirhat clash

A complaint has been lodged against Nupur Sharma, BJP spokesperson, with Gariahat police station on charges of tweeting a photograph of 2002 Gujarat riots claiming it to be that of the violence that took place at Basirhat and its adjoining areas in North 24 Parganas.

It may be mentioned that she had tweeted that: "Since trolls spent a sleepless night covering-up Basirhat violence, sharing media pics of the riots. Hope they report this to @WBPolice too" along with a photograph of charred vehicles. In reality, the photographs were of the riots that took place in Gujarat in 2002.

Twitter users criticised Sharma's move stating that it might incite violence and one must be careful enough before posting such photographs.

Some had even demanded legal steps against her, while others tried to gain attention of Delhi Police in this connection.

On Monday, the police lodged complaint against her under several sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) including charges of "promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony" (153A IPC), "deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage reli­gious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or reli­gious beliefs" (295A IPC), "whoever makes, publishes or circulates any statement, rumour or report with intent to cause, or which is likely to cause, fear or alarm to the public, or to any section of the public" (505 IPC).

It may be mentioned that both the Kolkata Police and West Bengal Police had created awareness among people not to tweet or post anything on any social networking sites that would affect the peace and harmony of the state. Repeated campaigns were held to make people aware that they shouldn't fall into the trap of rumour-mongers.