Delhi Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena has granted sanction to prosecute former JNUSU vice president Shehla Rashid Shora for her tweets on the Indian Army, officials said on Tuesday.
"Delhi LG VK Saxena grants prosecution sanction against Shehla Rashid, ex-Vice President of JNUSU & member of AISA, for making 2 tweets about the Indian Army aimed at promoting enmity between different groups & indulging in acts prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony," Delhi L-G's office wrote in a statement.
According to officials at the L-G office, the sanction is related to a 2019 FIR against her, under IPC section 153A, registered at Special Cell police station in New Delhi, on the basis of a complaint by one Alakh Alok Srivastava.
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The former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) leader is accused of promoting enmity between different groups and indulging in acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony through her tweets, they said.
The proposal for the prosecution sanction was moved by the Delhi Police and supported by Home Department of the Delhi government, the L-G office said.
The tweets by Shehla Rashid, dated August 18, 2019, had accused the Army of entering houses and "torturing" locals in Kashmir.
The allegations were rejected by the Army as baseless.
What were the tweets?
Back in 2018, Shella Rashid had made two tweets about the Indian Army aimed at "promoting enmity between different groups" and "indulging in acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony".
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A case was filed against Shehla Rashid in 2019 after she had claimed in her tweets that the armed forces were "entering houses" in Jammu and Kashmir and "picking up boys".
One of her tweets posted in 2019 read, “Armed Forces are entering houses at night, picking up boys, ransacking houses, deliberately spilling rations on floor, mixing oil with rice, etc. ”
Another tweet read, “In Shopian, 04 men were called into the Army Camp and ‘interrogated’ (tortured). A mic was kept close to them so that the entire area could hear them scream and be terrorized. This created an environment of fear in the entire area."
A case under the sedition law was filed against her by a lawyer. The L-G has granted the prosecution sanction under section 196 of CrPC, 1973.
(With PTI Inputs)
