Toolkit row: Truth remains unafraid, says Rahul Gandhi

New Delhi, A day after the Delhi Police’s Special Cell reached the doorsteps of Twitter India offices in Delhi and Haryana’s Gurugram in connection with alleged Congress toolkit probe, former Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday took a potshot at the government saying, “truth remains unafraid”.

In a tweet, Rahul Gandhi said, “Truth remains unafraid.”

His remarks came a day after the Special Cell sleuths arrived at the offices of Twitter in south Delhi’s Lado Sarai and Haryana’s Gurugram to deliver notices to its officials. However, the offices of the Twitter were found shut.

In a statement, Delhi Police said, “Delhi police team went to Twitter office to serve a notice to Twitter, as a part of routine process. This was necessitated as we wanted to ascertain who is the right person to serve a notice, as replies by Twitter India MD have been very ambiguous.”

Delhi Police has launched a preliminary enquiry into the alleged Congress toolkit and had served notice to Manish Maheshwari on May 21. On Monday, Delhi Police had said, “We are inquiring into a complaint in which clarification is sought from Twitter regarding the classification of a tweet by (BJP spokesperson) Sambit Patra as ‘manipulative’.”

The statement said that “it appears that Twitter has some information which is not known to us on the basis of which it has classified it as such”.

“This information is relevant to the inquiry. The Special Cell, which is conducting the inquiry, wants to find out the truth. Twitter, which has claimed to know the underlying truth, should clarify,” the statement added.

In its notice to Twitter India MD, Delhi Police had asked Maheshwari to be present in the office of the Special Cell on May 22 at 1 p.m. with all the relevant documents, but he did not turn up.

Twitter had described the tweet of BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra as “manipulated media” last week. Patra had shared the alleged toolkit of the Congress, accusing it of trying to defame the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The alleged toolkit sparked a row last week as Congress approached Delhi Police to register an FIR against Patra, BJP national President J.P. Nadda, party leader B.L. Santhosh, Union Minister Smriti Irani and others for forgery.

The Chhattisgarh Police also registered a case on the complaint of NSUI over the alleged toolkit and recorded the statement of former Chief Minister Raman Singh and also served notice to Patra.