22 Or 50, Law Equal For Everybody: Delhi Chief On Disha Ravi's Arrest

Delhi Police Commissioner S N Shrivastava on Tuesday said the arrest of climate activist Disha Ravi was made in accordance with law which "doesn't differentiate between a 22-year-old or 50-year-old".

Shrivastava said it is wrong when people say that there were lapses in the arrest of the 22-year-old activist.

Disha Ravi's arrest has been made in accordance with law which doesn't differentiate between a 22-year-old or a 50-year-old," the Delhi Police chief said.

He said Ravi has been sent to five-day police custody and the matter was being probed.

Soon after Greta Thunberg shared a toolkit regarding the farmers’ protests on Twitter, climate activist Disha Ravi asked Thunberg to delete her post as she feared police action against her, Delhi Police alleged on Monday.

A toolkit is a document created to explain any issue. It also provides information on what one needs to do to address the issue. This might include information about petitions, details about protests and mass movements and so on.

The toolkit that Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg posted on Twitter contained information regarding the farmers’ protests outside the national capital.

“This is a document meant to enable anyone unfamiliar with the ongoing farmers protests in India to better understand the situation and make decisions on how to support the farmers based on their own analysis,” the toolkit stated.

However, officials have claimed that the toolkit was created by "pro-Khalistan" supporters with an intention to wage a "social, cultural and economic war against the Government of India".

Police claimed that Thunberg allegedly deleted the tweet following Disha's request and later, shared an edited version of the document. They also claimed that the edits were made by 22-year-old Disha.

Police sources said Disha wrote to Thunberg on WhatsApp, saying, "Okay can you not tweet the toolkit at all. Can we just not say anything at all for a while. I am gonna talk to lawyers. I am sorry but our names are on it and we can literally get UAPA against us."

Disha allegedly made the request fearing registration of case under the stringent the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), police claimed.

Thunberg, a teen climate activist, had shared the "toolkit" to lend her support to the farmers' agitation against the three farm laws.

A senior police officer said that while examining the WhatsApp chats between Thunberg and Disha Ravi, it came to notice that Disha had requested Greta Thunberg to delete the tweet as the "toolkit" had her name in the document.

While responding to queries relating to toolkit document during a press conference at the Delhi Police headquarters, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cyber Cell) Anyesh Roy said that it is not a static document.

"It's a dynamic document which has a large number of hyperlinks, which are links to various Google drives, Google docs and websites. One of the important website present here is askindiawhy.com. This website has lot of Pro-Khalistani content. So, this document in itself has an action plan," Roy said.

The DCP said that in first instance, the document was not to be shared in the public and was private, but it was accidentally shared

"So this was a document to be shared to a limited number of people, who would then influence public opinion. Having global icons to follow this, this toolkit was made to propagate pro-Khalistan propaganda" he also said.

Earlier in the day, police said that Disha Ravi along with lawyer Nikita Jacob and Pune-based engineer Shantanu created the toolkit related to the farmers' agitation and shared it with others to tarnish India's image.

The police claimed that Disha, who was arrested on Saturday from Bengaluru, sent the toolkit to teen climate activist Thunberg through the Telegram app, and also "coaxed her to act on it".

The data was also deleted, police said, adding that Disha's Telegram account shows many links related to the toolkit were removed.

Earlier, a Delhi court issued a non-bailable warrant against Nikita Jacob and Shantanu. Soon after the warrant was issued, Jacob, approached the Bombay High Court seeking transit anticipatory bail. The high court has said it would hear the plea on Tuesday.

On Saturday, the Delhi Police arrested Disha Ravi from Bengaluru in connection with the case. A Delhi court remanded her in police custody for five days on Sunday.

(With PTI inputs)