India: Gujarat Police Detain Filmmaker Avinash Das for Photos Posted on Social Media

Source: https://thewire.in/rights/gujarat-police-detain-filmmaker-avinash-das-photos-social-media

Gujarat Police Detain Filmmaker Avinash Das for Photos Posted on Social Media

The Mumbai-based filmmaker was arrested for sharing one photo of Union home minister Amit Shah with arrested IAS officer Pooja Singhal and another of a woman wearing a dress in the colours of the national flag.

Filmmaker Avinash Das. Photo: Instagram/@avniashonly

The Wire Staff

Government
Rights

20.07.22 18 hours ago

Mumbai: The Crime Branch of the Gujarat police detained Mumbai-based filmmaker Avinash Das in a case related to sharing two separate images – one of Union home minister Amit Shah with arrested IAS officer Pooja Singhal and another of a painting of a woman wearing a dress in the colours of the national flag – on his social media account.

Das, director of the film Anarkali of Arrah, and TV shows like Raat Baaki Hai and She, was picked up from a few metres outside his house in Mumbai’s suburbs.

Ramkumar Singh, screenwriter and a close friend of Das, said that the filmmaker had stepped out of the house with his family when the police detained him. “He had been cooperating with the police and had agreed to visit Ahmedabad as and when the police needed him. So, he was not expecting to be arrested like this,” Singh told The Wire.

The Gujarat police confirmed to news agency PTI that Das is being taken to Ahmedabad. “We detained Das from Mumbai on Tuesday,” the city crime branch’s Assistant Commissioner of Police D.P. Chudasama told PTI. He is being brought to Ahmedabad, where he will be produced before a court, the officer said.

The police are yet to confirm his formal arrest.

Das has been booked under Section 469 (forgery) of the Indian Penal Code along with the provisions of the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act and the Information Technology Act. The forgery section is being applied for sharing Shah’s photo with IAS office Singhal, who is presently under arrest in a disproportionate assets case that is being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate.

Das had posted the photo from 2017 and wrote, “ghar se cask pakdaane se thoday dinon pehle Puja Singhal ki ek tasveer.” The phrase literally translates to “a few days ago”, but can also be used figuratively. However, the Gujarat police had accused Das of sharing the image to “mislead people and defame” Shah’s reputation.

Singh said the tweet had irked the Gujarat government. “The photo is not forged. He only shared it on his social media platform,” Singh said.

Another photo, shared on Instagram, is a painting of a woman wearing a dress with the colours of the national flag. Of the three sections applied, only one is non-bailable. “We will move the lower court for bail immediately,” Das’s lawyer from Ahmedabad, Suhel Tirmizi, said.

The Gujarat high court had recently rejected his pre-arrest bail, following which he had moved the Supreme Court. “The petition was to come up for a hearing on Friday, July 22,” Tirmizi confirmed. “But now with the arrest, that application is infructuous,” Tirmizi added.

Before moving an application before the Gujarat high court, Das had approached the Bombay high court. Citing jurisdiction, the court had directed Das to go to the appropriate court in Gujarat. Advocate Adil Khatri, who had handled his application in Mumbai, said that Das had agreed to hand over his mobile phone and was cooperating with the police. “He is a filmmaker and would not have absconded. His arrest was absolutely unnecessary,” Khatri said.