Saket Gokhale arrested by Ahmedabad cyber police for tweet on Morbi bridge collapse

O'brien said that the BJP is taking political vendetta to another level

The Ahmedabad Cyber Cell police arrested Trinamool Congress's national spokesperson Saket Gokhale from Rajasthan on Monday night over his tweets on the Morbi bridge collapse.

Police had said that Gokhale was detained for "rumour mongering" and triggering "false alarm" among public.

Later in the day, Gokhale was produced before a metropolitan court in Ahmedabad which remanded him in police custody till December 8 for investigation. Police had sought custody of Gokhale for further investigation related to the tweet.

Gokhale had tweeted the claims on the basis of a morphed screenshot of an article attributed to a Gujarati news daily. The morphed article had claimed that the information cited was based on an RTI response.

Ahmedabad Cyber Cell police officials told DH that Gokhale was "detained" from Jaipur airport in connection with an FIR registered two days ago. Officials said that FIR is based on a complaint filed by "BJP functionary" Amit Balchand Kothari, a resident of Shahibaug in Ahmedabad. Kothari complained that he saw the tweets and alleged that they were posted to "reap political benefits out of the Morbi bridge collapse."

Based on his complaint, the cyber cell registered the FIR under sections 469, 471, 501, 505 (1) (B) of Indian Penal Code, which deal with forgery, printing or engraving matter known to be defamatory and intent to cause, or which is likely to cause, fear or alarm to the public."

"We inquired from the newspaper whose stylesheet has been used in making the news clip and found they didn't publish the report. Besides checking independently, we found that no such report was ever published. We also checked with the Morbi collector whether an RTI to this effect had been filed and the response was negative. Subsequently, we filed the FIR and detained the accused for further investigation," a Cyber Cell police official said on condition of anonymity.

Trinamool Congress's Rajya Sabha MP Derek O'Brien tweeted early Tuesday morning that Gokhale was "arrested" by the Gujarat Police.

"Saket took a 9pm flight from New Delhi to Jaipur on Monday. When he landed, Gujarat Police was at the airport in Rajasthan waiting for him and picked him up. At 2 in the morning on Tuesday, he called his Ma and told her that they are taking him to Ahmedabad and he would reach Ahmedabad by noon today. The police let him make that one two-minute phone call and then confiscated his phone and all his belongings," O' Brien said.

"The cooked up case is filed with the Ahmedabad cyber cell about Saket’s tweet on the Morbi bridge collapse. All this cannot silence the All India Trinamool Congress and the Opposition. BJP taking political vendetta to another level," he alleged.