UP Police books Twitter India’s chief over distorted map of India

Twitter India MD Manish Maheshwari has been booked in the Uttar Pradesh over showing a distorted map of India on the micro-blogging platform. The map, showed the Union Territories of Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir as a separate country.

The FIR was filed at the Bulandshahr’s Khurja Nagar police station on Monday evening based on a complaint by an office-bearer of right wing Bajrang Dal.

Along with Twitter India Chief Maheshwari the FIR books News Partnerships Head Amrita Tripathi as accused, and has been charged under Indian Penal Code section 505 (2) (public mischief), Information Technology Act section 74 (publication for fraudulent purpose).

After receiving a heavy backlash from the netizens, Twitter removed that map on Monday evening. Earlier, the microblogging site had shown Leh as part of China.

The map’s glaring distortion, which appeared under the header ‘Tweep Life’, incited a heavy backlash from netizens as they demanded strict action against the platform that has breached several rules on multiple events in the past.

The US based microblogging platform and the Centre have been at loggerheads over multiple events in the past few months, including during the farmers’ protest and later when the Twitter tagged political posts of several leaders of BJP as “manipulated media”, provoking a sharp rebuke from the central government.

The US giant has been engaged in a conflict with the Indian government over the new IT rules.

This is second FIR against Twitter in connection with an incident in Ghaziabad’s Loni where an elderly Muslim man was allegedly assaulted.

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