'Disha Ravi's arrest in accordance with law': Delhi police chief denies lapses

The Delhi police on Tuesday dismissed the reports that there lapses in the arrest of climate activist Disha Ravi, with Commissioner SN Shrivastava saying her arrest was in accordance with the law which “doesn’t differentiate between a 22-year-old or 50-year-old.”

Disha Ravi, 22, was arrested by Delhi Police from Bengaluru on Saturday in connection with a toolkit document that outlined actions and social media strategies for supporting farmers’ protest against the Centre’s three new farm laws.

According to the police, she had sent the toolkit to Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg through the Telegram app, and also “coaxed her to act on it.”

“Disha Ravi’s arrest has been made in accordance with the law which doesn’t differentiate between a 22-year-old or a 50-year-old,” said the Delhi Police chief. He said Ravi has been sent to five-day police custody and the matter was being probed.

The police had earlier said Ravi along with Mumbai lawyer Nikita Jacob and Pune engineer Shantanu created the toolkit and shared it with others to tarnish India’s image. They also alleged “Khalistani” links behind the creation of the document.

Data was also deleted, police claimed, adding that Ravi’s Telegram account shows many links related to the toolkit had been removed.

Non-bailable warrants have been issued against Jacob and Shantanu, which will be heard by the Bombay High Court today.

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Meanwhile, officials said the police has sought video conferencing platform Zoom to share details of those who participated in the January 11 meeting organised allegedly by a pro-Khalistani group to prepare the protest “toolkit”.

Police alleged Jacob and Shantanu were among the around 70 people who had attended the meeting through Zoom, days before the Republic Day violence in the national capital that left over 500 police personnel injured and one protester dead.

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On Monday, Joint Commissioner of Police (cyber) Prem Nath had alleged the e-mail account created by Shantanu is the owner of this Google document.

“Pro-Khalistani group Poetic Justice Foundation (PJF) founder Mo Dhaliwal had contacted them (Jacob and Shantanu) through a Canada-based woman named Punit,” Nath had said.

“Nikita and Shantanu had on January 11 attended a Zoom meeting organized by PFJ in which modalities were decided to create the ‘toolkit’ titled ‘Global Farmer Strike’ and ‘Global Day of Action, 26 January’,” Nath said.

(With inputs from agencies)