May 10, 2024 04:02 AM IST
Bengaluru Police detained BJP’s Karnataka IT cell convener for uploading a video accusing Congress of appeasing Muslims, sparking unrest.
The Bengaluru Police on Thursday detained the IT cell convener of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) Karnataka unit for allegedly uploading an animated clip that showed the Congress appeasing Muslims at the cost of other faiths and castes, people aware of the matter said.
According to police, they detained Prashanth Makanoor as part of their investigation after they found that he uploaded the clip on the Karnataka BJP’s official X account.
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“During the investigation, we found that Prashanth Makanoor had uploaded the video on the social media handles of Karnataka BJP, hence he was detained as part of the investigation,” High Grounds police inspector B Bharath said.
Also Read | Bengaluru police summon BJP chief JP Nadda and IT cell head amid clip furore
HT reached out to Karunakar, the media convener of the state BJP, for a response but did not get one immediately.
The police action came a day after it summoned BJP president JP Nadda and the party’s IT cell head, Amit Malviya, after the Congress’s Ramesh Babu filed a case against the two and the chief of the party’s state unit, BY Vijayendra, under the Indian Penal Code’s (IPC) Section 505(2) (statement conducing public mischief), and the Representation of People Act’s Section 125 (promoting enmity between classes).
“The act of the accused person (s) is to wantonly provoke rioting and promote enmity between different religions and is prejudicial to maintenance of harmony apart from intimidating members of SC/ST community not to vote for particular candidate and causing enmity against members of SC/ST community,” the complaint said.
In its summons, the police asked the BJP leaders to appear before it within a week as part of the investigation. In a complaint to the Karnataka chief electoral officer, the Congress said that the BJP intended to promote enmity between communities through the clip.
“It is clear that the video social media post by them is to intimidate members of SC/ST community not to vote for Congress party by projecting that funds reserved for them will be usurped by Muslims,” it said in the letter.
The EC on Tuesday wrote to social media platform X, asking it to take down the controversial video. The video was no longer available on the party’s official Karnataka unit handle on Wednesday night.
This is the second video in the last few days from an official social media account of the BJP to attract significant criticism. On May 1, BJP’s official Instagram handle posted an animated video making similar claims, and then took it down.
