Criminal complaint filed against Prashant Kanojia for tweet against Army Chief

A criminal complaint was filed against journalist Prashant Kanojia on Sunday for his alleged tweet against Army Chief General Bipin Rawat.

The complaint has been filed against him at Tilak Marg Police Station here.

The complainant Alakh Alok Srivastava, a Supreme Court advocate, has sought the registration of FIR against Kanojia under Section 124A (sedition), 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc, 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 505 (statements conducing public mischief) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

According to the complaint filed with the police, Kanojia had published a tweet from his official handle comparing Army Chief General Rawat with General Dyer, who had ordered Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

"The instant complaint is being made against Journalist PRASHANT KANOJIA, who operated Twitter handle @PJkanojia. On August 10, at around 7:41 PM, the accused above named published a tweet from his official twitter handle @PJkanojia comparing Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat with infamous British General Reginald Dyer who had ordered Jallianwala Bagh massacre in the year 1919," the complainant said in his complaint.

"In his aforesaid tweet, the accused had placed a picture of General Bipin Rawat beside it and captioned it as Kashmir and Jallianwala Bagh respectively," he added.

The complaint further mentioned that "it is quite axiomatic from a bare perusal of the aforesaid tweet of the accused above named that he has intentionally and deliberately tried to insinuate that Army Chief General Bipin Rawat's role in Kashmir is similar to that of General Dyer in Jallianwala Bagh massacre."

"The accused has published his aforesaid tweet with the sole intention of maligning the image of our revered Indian Army, nationally as well as internationally; to create unrest in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of country; to promote disharmony, enmity, hatred and ill-will between different groups and also to provoke breach of peace in our country," the complaint said.

Prashant Kanojia was earlier arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Police a few months back for his alleged controversial posts against Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. He then got bail after the intervention of the Supreme Court of India.