Nagpur:
A case has been registered against four influential people, including Manish Kashyap, for allegedly conspiring to defame Union Minister Nitin Gadkari.
The Nagpur Cyber Police have registered an FIR against them for disseminating misleading information on the use of ethanol fuel (E20) and for tarnishing Gadkari’s image by dragging his name into the case “without any concrete basis”.
Apart from Kashyap, a famous YouTuber from Bihar, Desi BoysNCR, Harshit Rathi and Anklesh Invate are also named in the FIR.
According to the police, the four influencers circulated controversial videos on popular social media platforms such as YouTube and Instagram, alleging that large-scale fraud and fictitious transactions involving ethanol were taking place.
With these videos, they tried to convey that under the guise of ethanol policy, the law was being broken.
It is alleged that they deliberately misrepresented Gadkari’s ethanol policy in their videos.
Calling it an elaborate smear campaign, Shishir Tripathi, head of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s social media cell in Nagpur, filed a formal complaint with the Nagpur cyber police.
The complaint states that to add authenticity to the video, the influencers resorted to using fake or misleading interviews with ordinary citizens, the main purpose of which was to damage Gadkari’s political and social reputation. They were also accused of disturbing social harmony by spreading such misleading information.
The complaint clearly stated that these influential persons were misusing the name of a senior union minister solely to gather opinions and followers.
The official said the Cyber Cell’s investigation revealed that the information being spread by social media influencers was completely baseless, the videos were being sensationalized and endorsing illegal activities and Gadkari had nothing to do with the alleged cases of fraud or incidents depicted in the videos but his name was used.
Police are now conducting a technical investigation into the source of these videos and any potential conspiracy behind them.
(With inputs from Sanjay Tiwari)