FIR against Deepika Rajawat for communally sensitive tweet

Jammu, October 25: Jammu and Kashmir Police on Sunday booked an advocate Deepika Singh Rajawat on charges of posting a tweet on social media hurting the religious sentiments of Hindu community with malicious intention.

Rajawat had in 2018 successfully fought a legal battle leading to the apprehension of accused into the gang rape and murder an eight-year-old Bakwarwal girl in the forests of Kathua during 2018. Six of the seven accused including a retired revenue official and four policemen were found guilty by a Punjab court and jailed, while another was tried at a juvenile court.

Deepika had on Tuesday tweeted two sketched, one showing a person worshipping a woman during Navratras and the other showing him committing rape on her on other days.

Sources in the police confirmed registration of FIR in the matter, saying that this has been done following complaints from different people. They said that she has been booked under provisions of Sections 295A and 505 (b) (2) of the Indian Penal Code which deal with one creating enmity and hatred between different classes of people and making malicious report or content with an intention to cause alarm or induce a person attack and damage public property, besides injuring religious sentiments. Though the offences levelled in the FIR are non-bailable and the police were waiting for the report of its Cyber Cell about the origin of Tweet among other things before proceeding against the female lawyer and woman activist.

Earlier, Bajrang Dal activists led by Rakesh Bajrangi had held a demonstration outside her house and demanded action into the matter. They had also lodged a formal complaint against her with the police.

Deepika, however, described the FIR “a fractured piece which will not survive in the court’’, adding that it was registered by way of  “sheer abuse of law and under pressure from BJP and other saffron organisations’’. Pointing out that her tweet meant send a message about the irony of woman who was worshipped on one hand and raped on the other hand, she said that in the FIR she has been charged with offences which she did not commit.