Ahmedabad/Jaipur/Kolkata: A court in Gujarat granted police one day custody of TMC national spokesperson Saket Gokhale for interrogation in connection with his tweet over purported spending for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Morbi visit. He was arrested from Jaipur and was later taken to Ahmedabad where he was produced in a Court by the Cyber Crime Wing Police.
Gokhale had earlier quote tweeted an RTI reply and a news report on purported spending of Rs 30 crore for Modi's Morbi visit in the aftermath of the bridge tragedy which claimed at least 135 lives. The RTI tweet has been factchecked by the Press Information Bureau as fake and the district administration has refuted the claims of furnishing any such response to RTI.
Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday backed, who has been arrested by the Gujarat Police over a tweet on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and said that she condemned the BJP government's "vindictive attitude". Banerjee, who is visiting Rajasthan, also claimed that Gokhale made no mistake.
It's a very bad, and sad (incident). Saket (Gokhale) is a bright man. He is very popular on social media. He has made no mistake," Banerjee told reporters at Jaipur airport. "I condemn this vindictive attitude. He (Saket) has been arrested because he tweeted against the Prime Minister. People also tweet against me... We are really feeling sorry about the situation," she said before heading for Pushkar.
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In a tweet, TMC national spokesperson and Rajya Dabha MP Derek O'Brien detailed the circumstances under which the arrest was made. Gokhale took a flight at 9 pm from New Delhi to Jaipur on Monday. When he landed, the Gujarat Police was at the airport in Rajasthan waiting for him and picked him up. At 2 am on Tuesday, Gokhale called his mother and told her that the police were taking him to Ahmedabad and he would reach that city by noon, O'Brien claimed.
"The police let him make that two-minute phone call and then confiscated his phone and all his belongings," the TMC leader said on Twitter. "The cooked up case is filed with the Ahmedabad cyber cell about Saket's tweet on the Morbi bridge collapse. All this cannot silence the All India Trinamool Congress and the Opposition. BJP taking political vendetta to another level," he alleged.
Party general secretary Abhishek Banerjee in a tweet wrote, "Fearless, he stood against the ruling dispensation that trades lives for their own profit. In reaction, panic-stricken BJP got our national spokesperson Saket Gokhale arrested. It's their folly to think these acts of intimidation will make us to bow down!"
Congress Spokesperson Dr. Shama Mohamed termed the development as shocking. She tweeted: It is truly shocking that @SaketGokhale has been arrested by Gujarat police, reportedly for a tweet on #MorbiBridgeCollapse, when the actual persons responsible for the tragedy, including Oreva MD Jaysukh Patel, still haven't even been booked by the police! When PTI contacted, Jaipur airport police station SHO Digpal Singh said he had no such information. "I have no information. Nobody informed us," he said.
