New Delhi, Feb 16: After the arrest of 22-year-old activist Disha Ravi over charges of a toolkit tweeted by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg on the farmers’ protest, the Delhi Police Monday issued non-bailable warrants against Mumbai-based advocate Nikita Jacob and her associate Shantanu, saying that they were allegedly responsible for creating the Google document.
Advocate and activist Nikita Jacob has denied sharing any information with Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, while underscoring that the document was simply an “informational pack” and was not intended to incite violence.
In her statement to the Delhi Police, Ms Jacob has accepted that she played a role in mustering support for the farmers’ protests on the social media and shared details with activists globally, but emphasised that there was nothing illegal about what she did.
“The information contained in the toolkit does not in any manner incite riots or violence and is simply an information pack with information from various sources… No weapons, no violence, no mention of anything remotely violent in the toolkit or any of our communication,” the 30-year-old lawyer from Mumbai asserted.
Police said that Jacob and Shantanu Muluk, an engineer, were not found at their residence in Mumbai and Beed, respectively. Both work for a UK-based NGO called Extinction Rebellion (XR), they said. Sources said two more people are learnt to be on the police radar in connection with the toolkit.
Sources in the Special Cell, meanwhile, said that they have accessed purported chats between Disha and Greta, which allegedly indicate that after Thunberg tweeted the first toolkit on February 3, Disha sent her messages and requested her to delete it.
Citing prima facie investigation, a senior police officer said: “We believe Nikita and Shantanu asked Disha to join because she has contact with Greta. Their aim was to highlight the issue globally. The toolkit was supposed to be private but Greta posted it on Twitter. They later asked her to delete it, which she did. Disha then edited the document and it was uploaded again.”
Earlier, addressing a press conference in Delhi, Prem Nath, Joint CP (Cyber Cell), said that the aim of creators of the toolkit was to allegedly tarnish India’s image.
“The email account created by Shantanu is the admin account or owner of the Google document. Nikita and Disha are the editors of the toolkit. Disha further shared the document with Greta on Telegram. She also created a WhatsApp group to collaborate with other editors, which she later deleted,” he said. Disha had denied these charges in court.
During the hearing at Patiala House Court Sunday, Disha had broken down and told the court that she was not part of any conspiracy or group. “I was just supporting farmers…because they are our future…they are the ones who are providing us with our food and we all need to eat,” she had said, adding that she did not create the toolkit and only made two edits to the document.
Police said the sequence of events in the farmers’ protests, including the violent incidents at Red Fort on Republic Day, was a “copycat” of the alleged action plan in the toolkit.
On February 4, police registered an FIR under sections of sedition, promoting enmity and criminal conspiracy against the creators of the toolkit. On February 11, Delhi Police conducted a search at Jacob’s house.
“We intimated the Mumbai police and recovered two laptops and an iPhone from her place… Our team left in the evening and requested Jacob to make herself available for next search… When the investigating team reached her house the next day, she had absconded and has still not joined the investigation,” said Joint CP (Cyber Unit) Prem Nath.
With inputs from Indian Express and Hindustan Times.