Delhi Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena has granted his assent to prosecute former JNU Students Union vice president Shehla Rashid Shora for posting two tweets about the Indian Army aimed at promoting enmity between different groups.
According to Delhi Police officials, her tweets were prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony.
She was booked under section 153A (promoting enmity between two groups) by the Delhi Police Special Cell on September 3, 2019, based on a complaint filed by advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava.
The proposal to prosecute the AISA (All India Students Association) leader was moved by the Delhi Police and supported by the home department of the Delhi government.
According to the proposal, Shehla, a resident of Old Srinagar, posted two tweets about the Indian Army on August 18, 2019.
“Armed Forces are entering houses at night, picking up boys, ransacking houses, deliberately spilling rations on the floor, mixing oil with rice, etc,” her first tweet reads.
In another tweet, she said, “In Shopian, 04 men were called into the Army Camp and ‘interrogated’ (tortured). A mic was kept close to them so that the entire area could hear them scream and be terrorized. This created an environment of fear in the entire area.”
Her allegations were later rejected by the Indian Army as “baseless”. “Such unverified and fake news is spread by inimical elements and organizations to incite unsuspecting population,” the Army had said.
The prosecution sanction issued by the LG said, “The home department, GNCTD, in its observations on file has observed that, ‘the nature of case, location to which the tweets refer and making false allegations against the Army makes it a serious issue. Not every tweet is to be proceeded with, under criminal law.”
“But the tweet of the kind, in this case, needs to be processed against religious fault lines that have been created in Jammu and Kashmir by the likes of Shehla Rashid. The case is made for prosecution u/s 153A of the IPC. This relates to public order.”
The LG has granted the prosecution sanction under section 196 of the CrPC.