A former police officer has complained to the police about a BJP leader creating an X account as a woman and posting comments for months before revealing his true identity.
Y.P. Singh, who on his X account describes himself as ‘In-charge Muradabad BJP’, ‘Proud Karyakarta’ and ‘Ex State Secretary (UP BJP)’ had allegedly been posting tweets as a woman, as per Amitabh Thakur.
Thakur is a former police officer who was removed from the services and is now dabbling in politics.
Thakur said, “He (Singh) had made a Twitter account in a woman’s name and made derogatory comments, and later deleted the account….the thana did not file an FIR…the Lucknow court has asked an explanation (from the police station) of the same”.
Singh’s current account has his profile picture and there are none of the tweets he allegedly posted as a female.
However, screenshots of the now deleted tweets provided by Thakur include comments such as ‘I boycott all forthcoming films of Saif Ali Khan. And you?’. Another goes, ‘Follow me friends, I am a staunch Hindu lioness. Sanatan is above all for me. I shall follow back’. A third post reads, ‘Earlier I used to shop seeing the goods, now I shop seeing the shopkeeper. A small effort at boycott’.
Thakur is not clear whether Singh was impersonating a real person. The BJP leader, meanwhile, has refused to comment on the issue.
If a real person is being impersonated on social media, it is a crime under Section 416 of the Indian Penal Code as it falls under the definition of cheating.
Section 468 of the Indian Penal Code meanwhile deals with forgery of a document or electronic record for the purpose of cheating. A fake account is considered an electronic record that can be used to misrepresent and an accused can be booked under it.
