Republic Day violence | Shashi Tharoor, Rajdeep Sardesai move SC against FIRs

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and senior journalists Rajdeep Sardesai and Mrinal Pande have moved the Supreme Court against charges of sedition, promotion of enmity and criminal conspiracy levelled against them for posting “malafide, defamatory, false and misleading” tweets accusing the Delhi Police of killing a farmer during the tractor parade on Republic Day.

Also read: Farmers’ protests | FIR against Tharoor, senior journalists for ‘inciting violence’

The FIRs, registered by the Delhi and Gurugram Police, accused them of posting instigating tweets and deliberately circulating fake news accusing the Delhi Police of the murder of a man driving a tractor during the violence on Republic Day.

“This was clearly done with an intent to engineer large-scale riots and religious tension among different communities. This particularly assumes much significance as the ramifications of such riots and religious tensions would affect a sensitive state sharing international border. The accused persons have deliberately, without any authentication, fact-checking and verifying, purposefully posted fake, misleading and wrong information to instigate violence amongst the protesters, the farmer community in general and to add fuel to fire in the current protest for their own political and personal advantage,” the Gurugram Police FIR read.

The FIR filed by the Delhi Police stated that the accused, through their “fake, misleading and wrong” tweets, “tried to imply that the death of the farmer was caused by the violence committed by Delhi Police under directions of the Central government.”