Sambit Patra booked for tweets against Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajiv Gandhi

Chhattisgarh police on Monday registered a case against BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra in Raipur for allegedly promoting enmity between different groups and hurting religious feelings by his tweets against former Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajiv Gandhi.

According to the FIR, the case has been registered with Civil Lines police station of Raipur on the complaint of state Youth Congress president Poornachand Padhi.

“We have registered a case against Patra under various sections of IPC on the complaint of Padhi and investigation in the case is going on,” said Arif Sheikh, Raipur’s superintendent of police.

The case has been registered under sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc), 505(2) (statements conducing to public mischief) and 298 (uttering, words of Indian Penal Code ( IPC).

Padhi claimed that Patra in his tweets had levelled false allegations against Nehru and Rajiv Gandhi in connection with the Kashmir issue, 1984 anti-Sikh riots and Bofors scam.

Padhi in his complaint said that the two former PMs were never convicted in any case of corruption or riots.

“Moreover when the country is going through the biggest challenges, the act of tweeting such content on social platforms is not only prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony between different religious groups, communities but is likely to disturb the public tranquillity,” Padhi said in the complaint.

Padhi claimed the tweets were made with an intention to hurt religious sentiments.

“There is also likelihood that the tweet may cause fear in the Sikh community and induce any person of the community to commit an offence against the state or against the public tranquility,” the FIR alleged.

Padhi in his FIR further alleged Patra of using derogatory language against the former PMs that could incite any class or community of person to commit any offence against any other class or community.