Citizens gagged, can we call ourselves largest democracy: Robert Vadra

Disha Ravi has been sent to five days police custody for allegedly editing and disseminating the "toolkit" on social media.

New Delhi: Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra on Monday condemned the arrest of a 21-year-old climate activist from Bengaluru, Disha Ravi, over the “toolkit” controversy related to farmers’ protest on social media and said that ‘how can we call ourselves, the largest democracy… if arrests occur on a girl’.

“I do condemn the arrest of Disha Ravi, a 21-year-old Indian girl, a climate activist, who stood with the protesting Indian farmers and voiced her opinion for their needs and demands”,wrote Vadra on his Facebook account.

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“How can we call ourselves, the largest democracy… if arrests occur on a girl, who has her opinion? Citizens of our country will not be gagged. Daughter to remain silent? Daughter to say nothing?” he added.

Disha has been sent to five days police custody for allegedly editing and disseminating the “toolkit” on social media.

A Delhi court on Sunday remanded Disha to five days of police custody following her arrest in connection with allegedly spreading a “toolkit” related to the farmers’ protest. Duty Metropolitan Magistrate Dev Saroha of Patiala House Courts Complex allowed Delhi Police to quiz Ravi for five days. She was arrested on Saturday.

The Congress leaders have termed her arrest as “unwarranted harassment, unfortunate and shocking”.

According to the Delhi Police officials, Disha is a key conspirator in the “toolkit” case as she had admitted during the initial interrogation to editing, adding some things in the “toolkit” and spreading it further.

Last week, the Delhi Police sent a communication to Google seeking registration details and activity log of the account through which a “toolkit” related to the farmers’ protest which was created and uploaded on the social media platform.

Two e-mail IDs, one Instagram account, and one Uniform Resource Locator (URL) were mentioned in the toolkit and police have asked for details from the respective platforms.

The police had registered an FIR against unidentified persons in connection with the creators of the “toolkit’.