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Ghaziabad: The Uttar Pradesh Police has filed an FIR against Twitter and a few journalists and Congress leaders in connection with an elderly Muslim man who was assaulted in Ghaziabad and whose video with a fake narrative aimed at creating communal divide was put in the public domain and it went viral on social media.
A Samajwadi Party leader, prominently figures in this controversial video.
The FIR was lodged at the Loni Border police station of Ghaziabad district on Tuesday forenoon on a complaint lodged by a police officer, who has alleged that the video was shared with the ulterior motive of inciting communal unrest.
The FIR has been filed by at the Loni Police station against The Wire, Rana Ayyub, Mohammad Zubair, Dr Shama Mohammed, Saba Naqvi, Maskoor Usmani, Slaman Nizami. The allegation against them is that without verifying the video they gave a communal the fact, started giving communal colour to the incident on Twitter.
On investigation by the Ghaziabad Police into the video of assault and beating up of the elderly man that went viral on social media, it was found that the elderly man, Abdul Samad, had come to Behta, Loni border from Bulandshahr on 5 June. From there, along with another person, he went to the residence of the main accused Parvesh Gujar at Banthla, Loni. After some time other boys Kallu, Arif, Adil and Mushahid came to Parvesh’s house and started beating him along with Parvesh. According to the accused, Abdul Samad makes amulets, and their families were adversely affected by the amulets given by him. Because of this they had beaten him up. Abdul Samad was already known to Pravesh, Adil Kallu and others as amulets had been given by Abdul Samad to many people in the village. In this case, the main accused Parvesh Gujjar was the first to be arrested. On June 14, the other two accused Kallu and Adil also were arrested. Ghaziabad Police is investigating all angles and probing who all were behind concocting the fake video to create communal divide.
Even after the UP Police had ruled out any communal angle and had said Abdul Samad was attacked by six men – Hindus and Muslims – who were unhappy over the amulets he had sold them, NDTV quoted the UP police and at the same time gave communal colour to the incident by publishing the following:
“An elderly Muslim man was assaulted in Loni in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad district on June 5 while on his way to a mosque to offer prayers.The attackers allegedly abducted Abdul Samad from an autorickshaw and dragged him to a hut in a nearby forested area, where they reportedly shouted ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘Vande Mataram’, which they forced him to shout as well, as they punched and beat him with wooden sticks.”
Further the NDTV report said: “They reportedly also accused Mr Samad of being a Pakistani spy.One of the attackers – a young man wearing a white full-sleeve T-shirt and blue sweatpants – also threatened Mr Samad with a knife that he used to forcibly hack away at his beard.A video of the vile incident, in which Mr Samad can be seen pleading with his attackers, has been circulated online.The video shows at least two other young men attacking Mr Samad – one wearing a black shirt and red trousers, and another in a light-blue T-shirt and grey trousers.” I WAS ON MY WAY WHEN I WAS OFFERED A LIFT. TWO MORE MEN THEN GOT INSIDE (THE AUTO RICKSHAW) AND TOLD ME TO STAY. THEN THEY TOOK ME TO A ROOM AND LOCKED ME UP AND THRASHED ME. THEY FORCED ME TO CHANT SLOGANS… THEY TOOK MY MOBILE AWAY… THEY GOT A KNIFE AND CUT MY BEARD,” A VISIBLY TRAUMATISED MR SAMAD, WHO WAS REDUCED TO TEARS, SAID.” They even showed me a video of other Muslims being attacked,” he said, adding his attackers had boasted to him that they had killed many Muslims before.
