A notice has been issued by the Vadodara cyber police seeking an explanation from the chairman of the Gujarat chapter of Minority Development and Protection Foundation, Zuber Gopalani, for his controversial post on social media in which he had asked the adherents of Islam to boycott professionals supporting the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), as per reports. Gopalani is also a National Executive Council Member of the All India Muslim Majlise Mushavirat. Later an FIR was lodged against the Muslim community leader and two others in the case.
The notice which was issued on December 25 read that Gopalani’s post “provokes enmity between communities” as the post included specific names of the individuals from Vadodara’s medical community. It also asked Gopalani to appear before the police and explain his action.
“A tweet posted from your account names doctors from Vadodara’s medical community and alleges that they have made anti-Muslim remarks in public and extended their support to the CAA. This post attempts to fuel disharmony between communities and instigate a breach of peace between them. It has also given rise to a sense of fear among the doctor’s community in the city as you have directly asked the Muslim community to boycott the doctors and thus propounding a message of hatred and discord among the society. You are therefore called in to explain your action,” the notice read.
In his Twitter post, Gopalani had mentioned names of 14 doctors with their specialisation alleging that they routinely speak against the Indian Muslims on various forums. Adding that these doctors support CAA and NRC, Goplani asked the Muslim community members to boycott such doctors with “communal mindset”. He later deleted the tweet. Some of the doctors named by Zuber Gopalani have said that they had not shared any message on CAA or NRC, and they were surprised to see their names on his post.
Eventually, an FIR was filed against Gopalani, and two other men for propagating the contentious post. FIR was lodged against one Sagir Ahmed Abdul Ghani Ansari for posting the tweet and Mohammad Soaib Mohammad Kadiwala for forwarding the message on WhatsApp. The three men have been booked under sections 153 A (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony), 505 (with intent to incite) and 114 (abettor present when offence is committed) of the IPC.
According to a police officer who wished to remain anonymous, the action was taken as a precautionary measure to safeguard against targeting people in the city due to inflammatory social media messages. “The post clearly targets doctors and therefore the threat perception to these accomplished professionals cannot be ignored. Our social media cell is monitoring the social media activities in the fairest manner possible,” the police officer said.
