The Madhya Pradesh police on Thursday wrote to Twitter, asking it to take down a tweet posted by filmmaker Leena Manimekalai within 36 hours or face legal action.
Since the initial tweet posted by Canada-based Ms. Manimekalai that published a poster of her documentary film ‘Kaali’, depicting the Hindu Goddess as smoking and holding an LGBTQ flag, a huge controversy erupted and three FIRs have been filed in Madhya Pradesh in connection to it. Of these, one was registered in Bhopal against Trinamool Congress MP Mohua Moitra over her remark about Goddess Kali while the other two have been registered against Ms. Manimekalai herself, in Bhopal and Ratlam.
The notice, addressed to the social media platform’s legal department in San Francisco, was sent by Madhya Pradesh’s Cyber Intelligence and Cyber Crime Police, hours after State home minister Narottam Mishra said that he would write to Twitter to check tweets aimed at hurting the religious sentiments of the people.
Providing a link of the tweet, the notice said that “illegal content has been caused to be published by your website on the internet for which you are liable to be prosecuted subject to your compliance to the provision of section 79(2)(c) and (3)(b) of the Information Technology Act 2000 read with the Information Technology (Intermediaries guidelines) Rules, 2011.”
“In term of the above provisions, you are hereby directed to expeditiously remove access to the aforesaid illegal material/content mentioned above within a period of 36 hours without vitiating the evidence in any manner,” it added.
Look Out Circular
Earlier, Mr. Mishra told reporters that the State government would also write to the Centre to issue a lookout circular (LOC) against the film-maker. An LOC is issued to ensure that an individual, wanted by law enforcement agencies, is not able to leave the country.
Mentioning another tweet that purportedly insults other Hindu deities, Mr. Mishra said that such posts warranted immediate action and “what she was doing is now is on purpose”.
Ms. Manimekalai, however, defended her posts and said that the actions taken by BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh as well as the online backlash was a result of their ignorance. “BJP-payrolled troll army have no idea about how folk theatre artists chill post their performances. This is not from my film. This is from everyday rural India that these Sangh Parivars want to destroy with their relentless hate & religious bigotry. Hindutva can never become India,” she tweeted.
