A day after Swedish teen climate change activist Greta Thunberg tweeted about toolkit, while supporting the farmers’ protest, the Delhi Police has lodged a First Information Report (FIR) in connection with the matter which contained information on how to back the farmers’ protests. The toolkit has been doing the rounds on social media and police have also booked toolkit creators. The climate activist deleted that tweet and later reposted an updated version of the toolkit.
Praveer Ranjan, the Special Commissioner of Police, Crime, along with Chinmoy Biswal, the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Crime, and Anyesh Roy, the DCP, Cyber Crime, addressed a Press conference on Thursday where he said the police are monitoring social media in connection with the kisan agitation and police have also identified more than 300 accounts which have been used for pushing hateful and malicious contents.
“These handles are being used by some organisations and individuals having vested interest and they are spreading disaffection against the government,” said the Special CP.
“One document titled toolkit was uploaded through one of the handles on a particular social media platform. Preliminary enquiry has revealed that the toolkit in question appears to have been created by a pro-Khalistani organisation Poetic Justice Foundation. A section of the documents titled prior action delineates the action plan,” he said.
“The action plan was a digital strike through hashtags on or before January 26. Plan also included physical action on January 26. Watch-out or join farmers march into Delhi and back to borders,” said the Special CP.
“The unfolding of events past a few days including the violence of January 26 has revealed copycat execution of the action plan detailed in the toolkit. Design of the author of the toolkits is to create disharmony among various social religious and cultural groups and encourage disaffection against government,” said the Special CP.
“It also aims at waging social, cultural and economic war against India, the Delhi Police has registered a case under section 124-A, 153-A, 153 and 120-8 IPC which will be investigated by the Cyber Cell of Delhi Police,” he said.
The Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg earlier tweeted, “We stand in solidarity with the #FarmersProtest in India. Thunberg shared the same CNN story about the protests and the Government restricting internet near protest sites.
On Wednesday evening she in another tweet posted a toolkit that sought support for the farmers’ Republic Day protests. She deleted the tweet soon after. She later in another tweet said she was sharing an updated toolkit, which included seven ways to back the agitation. She also suggested organising protests near the closest Indian Embassy on February 13 and 14.
Reacting to comments made by foreign individuals and entities like Thunberg, the Indian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Wednesday saying their tweets as “not accurate”.
The statement said, “The temptation of sensationalist social media hashtags and comments, especially when resorted to by celebrities and others, is neither accurate nor responsible. Before rushing to comment on such matters, we would urge that the facts be ascertained and a proper understanding of the issues at hand be undertaken.”