Twitter unlocks handles of Congress leaders including Rahul

The unlocking of the accounts comes a day after the girl’s mother told reporters the family had no objection to their images being shared by politicians in quest for justice

Rahul Gandhi.: File picture

Pheroze L. Vincent   |   TT  |  New Delhi   |  15.08.21:  Twitter on Saturday unlocked the handles of the Congress and its leaders, including Rahul Gandhi.

The Congress tweeted: “Satyameva jayate (The truth alone triumphs).”

The tweet that led to the lock on Rahul’s account — showing a photo of the Congress leader with the parents of a nine-year-old Dalit girl who was allegedly raped and killed in Delhi — still remains invisible in India.

This owes to a notice from the National Council for the Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) to Twitter to prevent the revelation of the child's identity.

The unlocking of the accounts comes a day after the girl’s mother told reporters the family had no objection to their images being shared by politicians in the quest for justice.

A Twitter spokesperson said in an email to The Telegraph: “As part of the appeal process, @RahulGandhi has submitted a copy of the formal consent/ authorisation letter to use the referenced image via our India Grievance Channel.

“We have followed the necessary due diligence process to review the appeal in order to protect the safety and privacy of the affected individuals. We have updated our enforcement action based on the consent provided by the people depicted in the image.

“The Tweet is now withheld in India and the account access has been restored. As explained in our Country Withheld Policy, it may be necessary to withhold access to certain content in accordance with valid legal provisions under the Indian law(s). The withholding actions are limited to the specific jurisdiction/ country where the content is determined to be unlawful and remains available elsewhere.”

The Congress had accused Twitter of a double standard, as tweets by the National Commission of Scheduled Castes and its member Anju Bala of the BJP that contained photos of the parents had not led to their handles being locked.

Rahul said in a video on Friday: “Our democracy is under attack. We are not allowed to speak in Parliament. The media is controlled. And I thought there was a ray of light where we could put what we thought on Twitter. But obviously, that’s not the case.”

Twitter had explained the restriction of access to the Congress accounts saying they had not deleted the tweet, while the Congress alleged that the Centre had arm-twisted the US-based company.

On Friday, Twitter had transferred the MD of its Indian subsidiary, Manish Maheshwari, as a senior director in the parent company in San Francisco. In June, an FIR was lodged in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh against Maheshwari for tweets by Congress leaders showing a news report by a portal on an alleged incident of communal violence.

However, the Indian subsidiary, Twitter Communications India, is responsible only for business here and not content, which is handled by the parent company, Twitter Incorporated.

The Reuters news agency reported that an internal staff memo thanked Maheshwari for his work in India during “extraordinarily challenging times”.

On Friday, NCPCR chairperson Priyank Kanoongo had said he had written to Facebook as well over a video of the grieving parents posted by Rahul on Instagram, a social media platform owned by Facebook.

By posting the video and the tweet, Rahul is deemed to have violated the Juvenile Justice Act and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, which prohibit the revelation of the identity of any alleged child victim of sexual abuse.

In 2018, the Supreme Court had ruled that “…No person can print or publish the name of the (rape) victim or disclose any facts which can lead to the victim being identified”. Violation is punishable with a jail term of up to six months.

Delhi High Court has refused to issue notices on an individual’s plea for an FIR against Rahul on the issue and adjourned the matter to September 27.

Earlier this week, senior human rights lawyer Indira Jaising had tweeted: “We must understand the prohibition against disclosing the identity of a rape victim is to protect the living survivor; that logic does not apply to the dead victim.”

After the gang rape and murder of a paramedical student in a bus in Delhi in December 2012, the victim and her parents had been kept anonymous by most publications and personalities.

After Narendra Modi became Prime Minister in 2014, a news agency had tweeted photographs of Modi meeting the parents without blurring their faces. Twitter took no action against this.

The following year, the victim’s mother referred to her deceased daughter by name at a public event and said that it was the perpetrators who should feel ashamed and not the family.

दुश्मनों के बीच में भी निडर रहता हूँ,

शेर की तरह सीने में जिगर रखता हूँ.#राहुल_गांधी pic.twitter.com/DRY6xIAyJq

— Rahul Gandhi ~ Himanshu Prabhat 🏹 🚜🇮🇳 (@IamPrabhat987) August 14, 2021

Photos of the parents are widely available on social media but there have been no strictures from any panel.

Interim relief

On August 1, the Dalit girl was hurriedly cremated by a crematorium priest and other crematorium staff who claimed she had been electrocuted while using a water cooler on their premises near Delhi Cantonment.

After protests by Dalits, the police - who face allegations of intimidating the parents -- booked four men including the priest in connection with multiple offences including rape and murder.

No conclusive evidence from the forensic examination has emerged so far because the child's body has been burned.

On Thursday, a Delhi court allowed an interim compensation of Rs 2.5 lakh to the girl's parents on the ground of loss of life but declined interim relief for rape citing lack of evidence.

Additional sessions judge Ashutosh Kumar said in his order: "The IO (investigating officer) has further admitted that neither any statement of any eyewitness nor any other evidence, including medical or scientific, could be collected so far to confirm as to whether the victim child was raped or not. He has further submitted that at this stage, he cannot conclusively say as to whether the victim child was raped or not."

The order added that disclosure statements by the accused to the police - not considered conclusive unless corroborated by material evidence - suggested that the priest and a crematorium employee had raped and murdered the child and two other employees had participated in the cremation, thereby destroying evidence.

The parents have petitioned Delhi High Court for a judicial probe, alleging administrative failure by the police.