The Karnataka High Court today granted interim protection from arrest to Twitter MD Manish Maheshwari in relation to the FIR filed by the Uttar Pradesh Police over the Ghaziabad attack video.
Twitter India head Manish Maheshwari has moved the Karnataka High Court seeking relief in connection with the Loni assault case, sources said on Thursday. The Twitter MD had filed a writ petition before the Karnataka High Court against the notice issued by UP Police under Section 41A of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
The case relates to assault on an elderly man at Loni in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad district. A video of the incident was widely circulated on social media.
The Court also directed UP Police to not take any coercive action against Maheshwari in the interim.
Manish Maheshwari was supposed to appear before the Ghaziabad Police at 11:30 am on Thursday but did not reach the police station at the given time to get his statement recorded.
Whether Maheshwari will join the probe in the case or not, sources said, will now be decided only after the Karnataka High Court’s ruling in the matter. The hearing was scheduled to take place in the afternoon on Thursday.
The case pertains to the alleged assault on Abdul Samad Saifi, a resident of Bulandshahr, in Ghaziabad’s Loni area. Saifi was thrashed on June 5 allegedly over a dispute on a magical amulet given by him to the main accused in the case.
The assailants beat him and chopped off his beard. A video of the attack went viral on social media a few days later and was shared by many.
Over a week after the reporting of the incident (June 15, Tuesday), the Ghaziabad Police had booked Twitter Inc, Twitter Communications India, news website The Wire, journalists Mohammed Zubair and Rana Ayyub, besides Congress leaders Salman Nizami, Maskoor Usmani, Shama Mohamed and journalist-writer Saba Naqvi in connection with the matter.
Manish Maheshwari, who lives in Bengaluru in Karnataka, is currently in Delhi.
The matter will be heard next on June 29.
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