Gujarat AIMIM leader held over ‘derogatory’ post on ‘Shivling’ inside Gyanvapi mosque

A leader of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) in Gujarat was arrested on Wednesday by the Ahmedabad police for allegedly making derogatory remark on Hindu deities on Twitter in connection with the Gyanvapi mosque row, an official said. 

ACP, Crime Branch, JM Yadav said Danish Qureshi, a panelist on news channel debates, was arrested after his purported post on the micro blogging site on reports about discovery of a ‘Shivling’ inside Varanasi’s Gyanvapi mosque complex during a court-mandated videography survey drew criticism from some quarters. 

Hindu organizations made a representation before the Ahmedabad police for action against Qureshi, a spokesperson of the Hyderabad-based party in Gujarat, after his tweet appeared on Tuesday evening. 

“The action was taken after it came to the notice of the cyber team that derogatory language was used against Hindu gods and goddesses from a Twitter handle belonging to Qureshi. We carried out a technical analysis of the Twitter handle and arrested Qureshi,” the ACP said. 

He said Qureshi was being interrogated in connection with his post. Qureshi was booked under section 153 (A) of the Indian Penal Code (used against a person promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) and also section 67 of the Information Technology Act (transmitting obscene materials in electronic form), Yadav said.