Greens facing personal attack

Mumbai: Activists are now facing personal attacks and threats, allegedly from metro supporters for opposing Metro 3 car shed at Aarey.

Stalin D. of NGO Vanshakti, Amrita Bhattacharya and Biju Augustine — petitioners, whose PIL against the razing of trees at Aarey, is being heard in the Bombay high court — claimed that they are facing harrasment on Facebook at the hands of unknown persons. The Andheri and Dind-oshi police are looking into the matter after receiveing complaints from the activists.

“A woman put up a defamatory post about me this month and I requested her to delete it. After a while though, there was another post and she told the police that I had threatened her over phone. All this is false and I had to spend one entire day at the Andheri MIDC police station. The woman is refusing to accept that she put up defamatory posts. However, I have screenshots of her FB posts,” said Mr Stalin.

“This is nothing but putting pressure on us to divert us from the Save Aarey fight. The lady seems to be politically motivated,” he added.

In the case of Ms Bhattacharya and Mr Augustine, their contact numbers and residential addresses have been posted on Facebook by unknown persons. So much so that Mr Augustine has had to ward off people landing at his home to tell him to stop the Aarey protest.

Ms Bhattacharya sa-id, “I have lodged a complaint with Dindo-shi police station. The Facebook page which shared my address has some 12,000 followers and I don’t know any of them. It may be a fake profile. Forty-five to fifty tribals also accompanied me to the police station.”

Mumbai police spoke-sperson Pranay Ashok said, “We are looking into the matter and will take the help of cyber police if required.”