Attempt to malign me, will reply to allegations in court: Aaditya on Disha Salian case
Mumbai, Mar 20 (PTI): Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray on Thursday said attempts were being made to malign his image over the June 2020 accidental death case of Disha Salian, and he will present his side before the court.
Satish Salian, father of Disha Salian, former manager of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, on Wednesday said he has moved the Bombay High Court seeking a fresh probe into the mysterious circumstances under which she was found dead in June 2020. The petition demanded registration of a First Information Report against Aaditya Thackeray and transfer of the probe to the CBI, he said.
The petition also claimed that his daughter was raped and murdered, and subsequently there was a politically-orchestrated cover-up to protect certain influential persons, Satish Salian told reporters.
"Attempts are being made for the last five years to malign my image. We will put forth our side in the court. We will give our replies (to the allegations) in the court," Thackeray, a former Maharashtra minister, told reporters here.
Disha Salian died on June 8, 2020, after falling off the 14th floor of a residential building in suburban Malad. The city police had then registered an Accidental Death Report (ADR) case. Six days later, Bollywood star Rajput allegedly committed suicide in his apartment in Bandra.
Targeting Aaditya Thackeray on Thursday, BJP minister Nitesh Rane said as per the Supreme Court's past decisions, if a person is facing allegations of rape, he must be arrested.
He also demanded Thackeray's resignation as an MLA. "We have demanded this in the House (assembly)," Rane told reporters.
Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Ambadas Danve, who is the leader of opposition in the legislative council, alleged that the BJP was behind the attempts to target Thackeray.
The BJP-led government was free to investigate the case, he told reporters.
NCP (SP) leader Jitendra Awhad questioned why Disha Salian's father remained silent for five years, and said it was pure politics.
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Gurugram Police arrest BJP Yuva Morcha member for spreading fake murder story on social media
New Delhi: Gurugram Police have arrested BJP Yuva Morcha member Hariom Mishra, for allegedly spreading a fabricated and communally sensitive story on social media about the murder of a college student in Gurugram.
Mishra who is also known as Shaurya Mishra had shared a collage of four photographs on his X handle earlier this month. He claimed that a 24-year-old college student, identified as Nikita Agarwal, had been murdered by her classmate Arif Khan in Gurugram. In the post, he alleged that the woman was blackmailed, forced into prostitution, gangraped, and eventually killed. He also claimed that Arif dumped her body in a forest. The claims were presented as being based on police sources.
The post went viral and garnering over 1.5 lakh views, and was amplified by several right-wing social media handles across X, Facebook and Instagram. A verification of the claims revealed that no such incident had taken place in Gurugram. A search of credible news reports showed no record of any such murder. The police said this news would have inevitably attracted media attention if it were true.
On December 11, Gurugram Police publicly refuted the claims through their official X handle. They stated that the information which was being circulated was completely false. The police warned that legal action would be taken against those spreading misinformation. Despite the warning, Mishra neither deleted the post nor issued any clarification.
Police in Gurugram confirmed Mishra's arrest on December 16. The police said a FIR was filed after he continued to spread false information about the alleged murder of a Hindu woman by Muslim man. Police said Mishra, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Kaushambi district, is now being investigated.
Gurugram Police spokesperson Sandeep Singh told The Print that the accused had deliberately misrepresented facts and used objectionable content to spread hatred along religious lines. “Such posts can create serious disturbances in society, and the police take these matters very seriously,” he said.
A reverse image search conducted by fact-checkers at Alt News, revealed that the photographs used in the viral post were unrelated to the claims, while two of the images were traced to a Pinterest account belonging to influencer Maulik Chopra and another image was sourced from an Instagram post by influencer Shivam Thakur featuring a woman named Deepanshi Rawat. The fourth image was found on an unrelated Instagram page. The images depicted different individuals and had no connection to any crime.
Police said they are also investigating Mishra’s motive behind sharing the false and provocative content.
