New Delhi: Former Twitter India head Raheel Khursheed has alleged the Delhi Police visit at the company's offices in Delhi and Gurugram is for purpose of intimidation.
Delhi Police Special Cell on Monday reached the offices of Twitter India in Delhi's Lado Sarai and Gurugram to "serve notice" in the alleged Congress 'Toolkit' case wherein certain tweets by BJP leaders were flagged as having "manipulated media".
Raheel Khursheed, who was earlier the Head of Twitter India for News, Politics, and Government, has taken to the microblogging platform to allege that the visit was carried out to intimidate the platform.
"This would be funny if it wasn’t tragic. Delhi police know that no data is physically stored at Twitter India offices hence the purpose of raid is nothing but intimidation," Raheel Khursheed wrote.
When the news of this visit by Delhi police team broke out, it was termed as raid and later search. However, a source in Delhi Police told news agency IANS, "The Special Cell has sent a notice to Twitter. In its reply, Twitter said it has no more knowledge in the matter. So a team of Special Cell officers went to the offices of Twitter to record the statements of the persons there, but they were found closed."
The source clarified that there no raids or searches were carried out at the offices of Twitter in Delhi and Gurugram.
Later, Delhi Police issued a statement informing that its team "went to the Twitter office to serve a notice to Twitter, as a part of a routine process. This was necessitated as we wanted to ascertain who is the right person to serve a notice, as replies by Twitter India MD have been very ambiguous."
The visit was in reference to a notice sent to India MD Manish Maheshwari demanding an explanation for adding the "manipulated media" tag to tweets by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders on the alleged Congress ‘'Toolkit'’.
The Delhi Police Special Cell asked the microblogging platform to explain the reason behind their decision to add the tag.
"Delhi Police is enquiring into a complaint in which clarification is sought from Twitter on the classification of a tweet by Sambit Patra as 'manipulative'. It appears that Twitter has some information that is not known to us on basis of which they've classified it as such," the police said.
"This information is relevant to the inquiry. The Special Cell, which is conducting the inquiry, wants to find out the truth. Twitter, which has claimed to know the underlying truth, should clarify," it added.
The Indian government had earlier objected to Twitter for flagging BJP leaders' tweet on the alleged Congress 'Toolkit' that was claimed to be targetting Centre over its Covid-19 handling.