Mumbai Police wants TCN articles removed; Support for TCN comes from all quarters

By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,

New Delhi: Mumbai Police has reacted to the TwoCircles.net article, based on the interview of senior lawyer Mehmood Pracha, asking TCN to withdraw the articles.

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The Cyber Crime Investigation Cell, Crime Branch, C.I.D., Mumbai, the letter says, is inquiring a “Cyber Crime complaint wherein objectionable material about Police Commissioner of Mumbai is found to be uploaded in the below mentioned links on your website.”

Advocate Mehmood Pracha, who is defending German bakery bomb blast case convict Mirza Himayat Beg for his innocence, has been receiving threat calls from international telephone numbers. In an interview to TCN he had accused ATS/Mumbai Police led by Rakesh Maria of falsely implicating Muslim youth and also alleged that he is using the underworld don to coerce him.

The letter written by Mukund Pawar, Senior Inspector of Police, Cyber Crime Investigation Cell, says, “It is submitted that a false and grossly offensive comments are found to posted in the above mentioned links, which are causing annoyance, inconvenience, insult and hatred to the Commissioner of Police, Mumbai.”

Mumbai Police hence wants the article deleted/blocked “with an immediate effect.”

What is intriguing, however, is that the way Mumbai Police has asked for details like:
1. Users creation details with IP Address date and time (hh:mm:ss)
2. Login logout details of user viz. IP address, date and time from creation to till date.
3. Any optional email ID given by the user.

Editor of TCN, Kashif ul Huda has meanwhile responded to the mail saying, he is in discussion with the lawyers for advice and will soon respond accordingly. He added, “We see it as an attempt by Mumbai Police to scare us in taking down the story. It would have been better if they had responded to the serious allegation by a senior advocate. This is a press freedom issue where police is trying to censor views of a senior advocate from coming out in public.”

Reacting to the notice, Advocate Pracha said, “This is a clear case of shooting the messenger for the story is based on my interview. If they find anything offensive, they first needed to send me a notice.” He added, “I stand by what I have said.”

Speaking on the allegations made by Advocate Pracha, Editor of The Milli Gazette and President of the All India Muslim Majlis Mushwarat, Dr Zafarul Islam Khan, said, “What he is saying is quite understandable and probable; we have seen in this country how advocates who have defended the victims of the politics of terror, how they were thrashed, hit and side-lined.” He reminded that Advocate Shahid Azmi was killed by similar forces.

Reacting to the threat calls Advocate Pracha has been getting, he said, “it is the duty of the government and the police to find out who are these people who have been threatening him, and book them and put them behind bars.” He echoed Advocate Pracha and said that if they are not taking any action, it shows that the police or ATS are behind those calls.”

He also reiterated the demand that all those youth who have been “rotting in jails” for years against whom no charges have been filed should be released. He also demanded that those innocent who were falsely implicated should be adequately compensated on an average Rs 5 lakh per annum, for the time they spent in jail.

President of Welfare Party of India, Mujtaba Farooque said, “We all know that police in India have been misused for politician advantages and hence there is an urgent need of police reforms.” He too supported Advocate Pracha and said that if you go through documentary evidence, it is clear that in many cases police have implicated innocent youths falsely. “They are not even ready to accept their mistakes and are using threatening tactics that clearly won’t work.”

Tasleem Rahmani of WPI extended his solidarity to Advocate Pracha and said that he must not be cowed down by such threats as Mumbai Police will not be able to hold on to their cases legally.

In a press-statement, Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR) said, “We strongly condemn this cowardly attempt to silent the voice of the dissent.This threat is not to the Advocate Mehmood Pracha who is only trying to perform his constitutional & professional duty but to all the legal fraternity,the judicial system as well as the constitution of India which guarantees all its citizens the equality before law and right to be defended by lawyer of his own choice.”

“We request all the justice loving peoples and members of the civil society to raise their voice against these cowardly attempts to silent to voice of oppressed and demand that Government of India should take strong action against these anti nationals elements who are the biggest threat to the Indian security, sovereignty, integrity as well as the Constitution,” it added.

Advocate Mohammad Shoaib of Rihai Manch, who too has faced personal attacks for defending terror accused, demanded a fair inquiry into the role of Police.

Social Media has meanwhile reacted strongly to the Mumbai Police notice.

Senior Journalists Rana Ayub, Editor (National Security) of Hindustan Times, Saikat Datta and former Editor of The Hindu, Siddharth Varadarajan tweeted on March 20 attaching the copy of letter and highlighting the issue.

Twitter handle @brownbrumby responded sarcastically: “Mumbai Police is known to be the most honest & professional workforce in India if not the world.Such criticism is unwarranted.”

Nitin Gujaran (@ngujaran) extended support to TCN with #bravejournalism #justice hashtags, adding “great job in highlighting this issue.”

Supreme Court lawyer Karuna Nundy to tweeted:

Another twitterati wrote:

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