Police blunder leads to complaint against YouTuber Dhruv Rathee over defamatory tweet from parody account

Mumbai, Saturday 1 p.m.: The First Information Report (FIR) has been registered against YouTuber Dhruv Rathee with the Maharashtra Cyber ​​Police for a defamatory tweet that was found to have been posted by a parody account.

The tweet on ‘X’ (formerly known as Twitter) by a user @dhruvrahtee, a verified handle, read: “India is the only country where you can pass UPSC without taking any exam, but for that you have to be born as the daughter of Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. Om Birla’s daughter Anjali Birla passed UPSC without taking any exam, she is a model by profession. Modi government is making a mockery of our education system.” (This tweet is currently deleted from the platform)

Within hours, the tweet gained popularity and subsequently, Anjali’s cousin Naman Maheshwari contacted the Maharashtra Cyber ​​Police to register an FIR against Rahtee. According to the FIR, sections of defamation and various Information Technology (IT) laws have been slapped on Rathee for not only defaming Anjali but also using her photo without her consent.

The police started their investigation into the matter and a few hours later, they realized that the person who posted the tweet was not Rathee, but someone else who was running the Rathee parody account. The account bio states, “This is a fan and parody account and is not affiliated with the original @dhruvrathee account. I am not impersonating anyone. This account is a parody.”

On Sunday, the IT police contacted the parody account’s manager asking him to delete the objectionable posts he had tweeted. After deleting the posts, the parody account tweeted, “As requested by @MahaCyber1, I have deleted all my posts and comments on Anjali Birla. I would like to apologise as I was not aware of the facts and copied someone else’s tweets and shared them.”

In its Saturday edition, a local newspaper published an article about a complaint filed by the cyber police against Rathee. Rathee sent a message to “X” saying: “Why is your newspaper’s front page spreading fake news about me? Use your eyes to see that this so-called message was posted by a random parody Twitter account. I have nothing to do with it.”

Published on: Saturday, July 13, 2024, 11:55 PM IST