Actor-turned-politician and former Congress Member of Parliament, Ramya, has been booked by police in Uttar Pradesh for a tweet against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Ramya, who is the chief of Congress’ social media and digital communications, had tweeted a photoshopped photograph of PM Modi, painting “chor” on his wax statue with a hashtag “Chor PM Chup Hai”.
Gomtinagar Police station has booked Ramya under Section 67 of The Information Technology (Amendment) Act and sedition (Section 124A) of the Indian Penal Code, based on a complaint filed by a Lucknow-based lawyer, Syed Rizwan Ahmad, on Tuesday, 25 September.
In a tweet, the lawyer posted a photograph of the FIR acknowledgment and stated that the PM’s legal team should me more active. He wrote, “Twitter friend and I have initiated the legal proceedings as you (PM Modi) are the country’s Prime Minister and not of any specific group.”
He claimed that he made the police complaint after she refused to remove the post.
Arguing that this was an attack on the Indian republic and the PM, he also claimed he had “nothing to do with BJP/RSS”
Following the FIR, he asked the BJP to follow the case. He tweeted, “#1My humble knowledge says that Defamation in capacity of individual is not maintainable..BJP as an organization is more fit to initiate.”
He also urged people to support one Vibhor Anand, who is raising funds on a crowdfunding platform, to file a Rs 10,000 crore civil defamation suit against Ramya for the same tweet. Vibhor also threatened to make Congress president Rahul Gandhi a party in the case.
In his post on CrowdKash, Vibhor said:
I would initiate a Civil defamation suit and Criminal Case under Section 67, IT Act, 505/153A IPC against her if she doesn’t delete this tweet and issue a public apology.
(This story has been published in an arrangement with The News Minute.)
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