By Santushti Raina
New Delhi: The arrest of 21-year-old climate activist Disha Ravi from her home in Bengaluru by the Special Cell (CyPAD) of Delhi Police on Saturday for her role in preparing a digital campaign toolkit for the ongoing farmer’s protest, has created sorts of a political storm. Disha was remanded to police custody by the magistrate at Delhi’s Patiala House court today. The “toolkit Google doc” was shared by global climate campaigner Greta Thunberg.
A toolkit is a social media document that explains an issue and action plans. Greta Thunberg had tweeted it while she extended her support to the ongoing farmers’ protest.
Joint Commissioner of the Delhi Police, Prem Nath, said during a press briefing today that On February 4, the police came across a Google document toolkit on Twitter. “We found it was created by the pro-Khalistan group, the Poetic Justice Foundation. One portion of the toolkit mentioned the action points and named prior actions – digital strike-through hashtags on 26 January, tweetstorm 23 January onwards, and physical action on 26 January. The second part of the document mentioned disruption of Indian cultural heritage like yoga and tea and targeting of Indian embassies in various capitals.”
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Nath said the points mentioned in the toolkit and physical developments witnessed in Delhi clearly pointed out that the toolkit action plan was executed on the ground in a “copycat manner” – While a large number of farmers have been protesting at the three borders of Delhi since November 27, 2020, it was during the tractor rally on January 26, 2021, that “large-scale violence” was witnessed in Delhi. “After the 26 January incident, a large number of incidences of circulation of fake news manipulated or edited videos, and misleading propaganda was witnessed on social media,” he said and added that keeping all these things in mind the investigation were taken up by the CYPAD, its cyber unit.
“During the investigation, many screenshots of the toolkit available on open source were investigated. A search warrant was then obtained from the court on February 9 against Nikita Jacob, one of the editors of the toolkit,” he said.
The search was conducted by a team of Delhi Police at Nikita’s residence in Mumbai on February 11 in her absence, after due intimation to the Mumbai Police. Two laptops and an I-phone were seized and incriminating information was retrieved from the three devices. “Nikita was asked to be available at her house the next morning and she gave a written undertaken,” he said. He added: “It has been found that Nikita and her associates Shantanu and Disha had created the toolkit document. The email account created by Shantanu is the owner of the document while all others are its editors.”
A woman named Puneet, who is based in Canada, connected the three persons to the Poetic Justice Foundation (PJF) and through them created the toolkit document titled ‘Global farmers strike and global day of action, 26 January’.
He said on January 11, Nikita and Shantanu had attended a Zoom meeting organized by the Poetic Justice Foundation (PJF) during which the modalities of the ‘global day of action’ were worked out.
“Nikita, Shantanu, and Disha collaborated to draft the toolkit. Based on the evidence gathered from Nikita’s devices, teams were sent to Maharashtra’s Beed district and Bengaluru. In Beed, Shantanu was not found at his house. The next morning when a police team reached Nikita’s residence, she had absconded. We are searching for both and have taken NBWs for both,” he said.
The team examined her phone in the Karnataka capital and extracted highly incriminating information from it. The information proved that the three people had created the toolkit document. Nath said Disha, who is associated with the environment movement ‘Fridays For Future’, had sent the toolkit to Greta Thunberg on Telegram. “The main aim of the toolkit was to create misinformation and disaffection against lawfully-elected (Indian) government,” he claimed. According to him the toolkit sought to artificially amplify the fake news through various tweets, which they had created in the form of a tweet bank, and they also asked the public to take part in it. That they were forced to act against Disha because she had deleted a WhatsApp group that was created to coordinate among various members for the toolkit.
“She was arrested in the presence of her mother and the area concerned SHO. Further, due process was followed during the arrest and the court has granted 5-day custody for her,” he said. He further said Shantanu was an engineer and a native of the Beed district in Maharashtra. He also had a residential place in Pune and was associated with an NGO XR Chapter. He said Nikita also worked for that NGO.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had also earlier told Twitter that the toolkit was proof that a strong social media campaign was being planned outside India and Twitter was one of its platforms for mobilisation.
However, the arrest of Disha has created a political storm. Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi criticised the Centre over the arrest. (See their tweets below).
डरते हैं बंदूकों वाले एक निहत्थी लड़की से
फैले हैं हिम्मत के उजाले एक निहत्थी लड़की से#ReleaseDishaRavi #DishaRavi#IndiaBeingSilenced— Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) February 15, 2021
डरते हैं बंदूकों वाले एक निहत्थी लड़की से
फैले हैं हिम्मत के उजाले एक निहत्थी लड़की से#ReleaseDishaRavi #DishaRavi#IndiaBeingSilenced— Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) February 15, 2021
Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal also took to Twitter today in the morning to condemn Disha’s arrest, which the Aam Aadmi Party leader compared to an unprecedented attack on democracy.
Arrest of 21 yr old Disha Ravi is an unprecedented attack on Democracy. Supporting our farmers is not a crime.
— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) February 15, 2021
Shiv Sena’s Priyanka Chaturvedi also condemned Disha’s arrest today and said that the nation is stronger than the ‘toolkit’ the young activist has been arrested for. Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram also criticised Delhi police, today in the morning by tweeting “I strongly condemn the arrest of Disha Ravi and urge all students and youth to raise their voices to protest against the authoritarian regime.
Lawyer Prashant Bhushan in a tweet termed the arrest as “illegal” and “malafide” and issued a statement claiming that the Delhi Police violated all norms and procedures of the Code of Criminal Procedures in arresting her. (See the tweet below)
Our Statement on Delhi Police’s illegal&malafide arrest of environmental activist #DishaRavi for playing a small role in preparing a digital campaign toolkit for the farmer’s protest. The Magistrate in mechanically remanding her to police custody also abdicated his responsibility pic.twitter.com/RMZSISlqLV
— Prashant Bhushan (@pbhushan1) February 15, 2021
Darshan Pal, leader of the agitating Sanyukt Kisan Morcha comprising 40 farmers’ unions, too had issued a statement on Sunday, condemning the arrest of Disha, who he said, “who stood in support of the farmers”. He also demanded her “immediate unconditional release”.,” said farmer leader Darshan Pal in a statement on Sunday.
