Mewani booked for posting doctored images

Pune: Gujarat legislator Jignesh Mewani has been booked by Pune (rural) police for allegedly defaming and breaching of cyber laws on Tuesday, acting on a complaint of a columnist. On May 30, Mewani had posted the photoshopped image of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Yogi Adityanath and the complainant, who is a columnist for Tarun Bharat and Swarajya Magazine. The FIR was lodged with the cyber cell.

Mewani had shared the image of three and tried to go parallel with the 2012 Hindi film ‘Oh My God, which talks against superstitions and god men. Mewani said in the post, ‘whether art imitated in real life’. According to the police, Adityanath and Ravi Shankar’s images are real and the complainant’s image is added via photoshop.

Mahesh Chavan, assistant police inspector, Cyber Crime, Pune rural police, said, “As per the FIR, Mewani had taken photo of the complainant from her Facebook Page and posted it in the image with Ravishankar and Adityanath. The same picture was posted on twitter as well, which went viral. We have invoked Indian Penal Code (IPC) 500 for defamation and Cyber Security Act 66A.”

Following the post, Mewani received criticism as the image was fake. However, on May 31, he apologised saying this image popped up on a Facebook page and he shared it. He tweeted, “I was told that this is a photoshopped image. Apologies for posting it without verification. Deleting my previous tweet now and will be careful in future. We all should be careful about such things and whenever we get to know that its doctored we should delete it.”

However Mewani did not reply to any calls and messages when The Asian Age contacted him after the FIR was lodged.

The complainant said to The Asian Age, “I have told all my grievances to police and now law will take its own course.” When she was asked why she went to the police when Mewani had already apologised, she repeated her stance, saying she had shared her grievance with police and did not want to talk more.