Sambit Patra’s ‘manipulated media’ tweet row: Delhi Police Special Cell lands up at Twitter India offices

A team of the Delhi Police Special Cell landed up at the offices of Twitter India in three locations in Delhi and Gurugram on Monday evening, as per a news agency report.

Earlier today, the Special Cell had sent a notice to Twitter regarding the issue asking it to share information on how it described the toolkit as ‘manipulated media’.

"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. The information is relevant to the inquiry. Special Cell, which is conducting the inquiry, wants to find out the truth. Twitter, which has claimed to know the underlying truth, should clarify," the Delhi Police said in a statement.

The controversy erupted after BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra took to Twitter on May 18 and shared a page, saying, "Friends look at the Congress 'ToolKit' in extending help to the needy during the Pandemic. More of a PR exercise with the help of 'Friendly Journalists' and 'Influencers' than a soulful endeavour. Read for yourselves the agenda of the Congress: CongressToolKitExposed."

Following this, the Congress accused the BJP of propagating a fake ‘toolkit' and filed a complaint with the Delhi Police against BJP chief J.P. Nadda, Union minister Smriti Irani, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra, BJP general secretary B L Santhosh and several others from the saffron camp, as reported by National Herald,

The tweet was flagged by Twitter as 'manipulated media' on May 21 after the Congress complained to Twitter that the ensemble of pages circulated as the party’s ‘toolkit’ by top BJP leaders was fake.

The letter by Congress had pointed out that top BJP functionaries had used Twitter as a platform to disseminate “false information” which could “cause social unrest in the country, amidst the current pandemic.”

“…the said persons (BJP leaders including its president J.P.Nadda) are habitual of manufacturing forged content and misusing the Twitter platform for disseminating the same,” the letter written by the head of Congress’ research team Rajeev Gowda and its social media team’s chief Rohan Gupta had said, as reported by National Herald.

Fact-checking website AltNews has already published a comprehensive report establishing that the document which the BJP leaders had disseminated on social media was created on a forged Congress letterhead.

The Congress has accused the ruling party of deploying "forgery" to divert public attention from the government's alleged failures in managing the Coronavirus pandemic.

Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the BJP does not want to answer the public over its alleged failures to provide life-saving medicines, ventilators and ICU beds during the pandemic, and thus was resorting to such tactics.

Surjewala said that the document on Covid 'toolkit' is forged even though his party owned up to another paper pertaining to the central vista project. "The apparent forgery and its use to divert attention and agenda-setting by the BJP has been exposed. I understand that Sambit Patra (BJP spokesperson who shared the toolkit' on Twitter) will have to go to jail and he is jittery because of that. This forgery will not succeed. They are trying to reset the agenda," Surjewala said.

Chhattisgarh police has lodged an FIR against Sambit Patra and former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh on the basis of a complaint made by National Students Union of India (NSUI), as reported by National Herald. It had summoned Patra to appear before it on Sunday but he evaded the same, claiming that he was “busy in relief work”.

(This is a developing story)