Parliamentary panel asks twitter CEO to appear on Feb 25, after he failed to appear on Feb 11
BJP spokes person termed it as an "insult" of the country to ignore summons
New Delhi: The parliamentary panel on Information technology on Sunday refused hear the representatives of global social media platform twitter, who were appearing for the company over “safeguarding citizens’ rights on social media” and asked the company’s CEO Jack Dorsey to appear before the panel on Feb 25.
The 31 member parliamentary panel, led by BJP’s Anurag Thakur, passed a resolution that they will not allow any representatives of the company to appear before them on behalf of the company, and that only the top executives shall appear before it”.
The panel in a official letter to the company on February 1, had summoned the CEO of the company to appear before it on Feb 7, which was later postponed for today, to seek his opinion on complaints about bias behavior of the company against right-wing handles on twitter. A right wing group had earlier protested against the micro-blogging site claiming that is suspends or bans accounts that are sympathetic toward the ruling BJP government and its allies.
Twitter had refused to attend the meeting with the panel citing “short notice of the hearing”.
However, the micro-blogging site had issued a statement and had clarified “Twitter is a global platform that serves a global, public conversation. Elevating debate and open discourse is fundamental to the platform’s service and its core values as a company. Twitter is committed to remain unbiased with the public interest in mind.”
“The public conversation around Twitter’s policies and actions may be distorted by some who have a political agenda and this may be particularly acute during election cycles when highly-charged political rhetoric becomes more common. For our part, we will endeavour to be even more transparent in how we develop and enforce our policies to dispel conspiracy theories and mistrust,” Colin Crowell, global vice president, public policy, Twitter, added in the statement.
Twitter is yet to send a word out on whether its top-officials will appear before the panel on Feb 25.
The BJP had said that the refusal of the twitter to ignore its summon was an “insult” and that no agency in any country has the right to disrespect the institutions of that particular country.
“If Twitter is disrespecting the established institution of Parliament, then there are repercussions,” BJP spokesperson and New Delhi MP Meenakshi Lekhi told reporters.
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Bank account in Ramgarh tracked for fraudulent fund transactions across 24 states, 4 arrested
Ramgarh (Jharkhand) (PTI): Jharkhand police on Thursday said it has unearthed a network of interstate cyber frauds and arrested four miscreants for fraudulent transactions through a bank account in Ramgarh district after complaints of 274 suspected transactions in 24 states.
The states where complaints for fraudulent transactions were registered included Maharashtra, Karnataka, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.
The action followed inputs received through 'Samanvaya portal', a centralised, web-based platform launched by the Union Home Ministry to curb cybercrime.
"We arrested four cyber miscreants after a current account with Kuju (Ramgarh) branch of the State Bank of India was found to have registered suspected financial transactions in 24 states with the help of the Pratibimba portal of the Home Ministry through the Samanvaya portal," Ramgarh Superintendent of Police Mukesh Kumar Lunayat said.
During the probe, police found that the account was opened under the MSME Udyam Registration scheme in the name of Shree Ganesh Enterprises, he said.
The account had been linked to as many as 274 complaints from different states related to cyber fraud and illegal fund transfers.
The registered proprietors of the enterprise were identified as Rahul Gupta (37), Ravi Kumar Verma (34), and Ajay Sharma (33), all residents of Ramgarh district, a statement from the Ramgarh police said.
During interrogation, Rahul Gupta and Ravi Kumar Verma revealed that they had opened multiple current accounts at the behest of Ritesh Agrawal alias Munna (40) and Sonu Kumar Jha (34).
They admitted receiving Rs 1.2 lakh in exchange for facilitating the opening of these accounts.
"The accused further confessed to sharing OTPs, activating mobile banking services, and handing over control of the accounts to the main operators through WhatsApp and Telegram groups. These accounts were then allegedly used to route fraudulent transactions.
Police said mobile data analysis of the accused led to the recovery of crucial digital evidence, including details of SIM cards, bank accounts, passbooks, ATM cards, QR code scanners, Aadhaar cards, and PAN cards shared through messaging platforms.
A total of four accused have been arrested so far and sent to judicial custody.
A case has been registered at the Cyber Crime Police Station under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) 2023 and Sections 66C and 66D of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
Further investigation is underway, the police said.
