Senior Advocate Monika Arora, one of the authors of the yet-to-be-released book ‘Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story’ filed a complaint with the Delhi Police Commissioner against Bloomsbury India and several leftist Islamists over the abrupt withdrawal of the book by the Publication house. She took to Twitter to share the copy of a police complaint filed against Bloomsbury India, leftist portals The Quint and Newslaundry, and ‘activists’- Saket Gokhale, Arfa Sherwani, Nandini Sunder, Aatish Tasser, William Dalrymple, Meena Kandasamy and other unknown persons, for the offence of criminal breach of trust, cheating, mischief, misappropriation of property under Sections 403, 405, 406, 409, 415, 420, 425, 426 of IPC.
After the book was withdrawn by Bloomsbury under pressure from Islamists, and it was announced that the book will be published by Garuda Prakashan, the manuscript of the book mentioning Bloomsbury as the publisher had emerged on social media. It was alleged that the manuscript was leaked by Bloomsbury, as only the publisher and the authors had the manuscript before its publication.
Filed criminal complaint against @BloomsburyIndia @AatishTaseer @DalrympleWill @khanumarfa @nandinisundar@TheQuint@SaketGokhale 4 hatching criminal conspiracy 2 threaten,harm reputation of authors&book, theft of copyright material, hate speech@CPDelhi has assured strict action pic.twitter.com/tiMznKBkS3
— Monika Arora (@advmonikaarora) September 3, 2020
In the complaint, the authors of the book accused the named parties of maliciously receiving, retaining and propagating stolen copy of the manuscript of the to be published book ‘Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story’. The PDF version of the yet-to-be-released book was leaked with “an intention to deliberately, willfully with dishonest intentions to expunged my work”, read the complaint submitted to the Delhi Police Commissioner Thursday.
The “Urban Naxal Gang” conspired, pressurized, bullied and blackmailed the Publisher: Monika Arora said in her complaint
In the complaint, the author has made a note of the venomous campaign which had allegedly “emerged on social media especially Twitter when this group of individuals/propagandists widely known as the “Urban Naxal Gang” conspired and went all out to kill the book by pressurizing, intimidating, bullying and blackmailing the Publisher. They even thanked and congratulated one another for being able to put a stop on the release of the book”.
Bloomsbury India had suddenly decided to withdraw the publication of the book ‘Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story’ after being bullied by the left-liberals and Islamists on social media.
Till date Bloomsbury India has not returned the copyrighted material to the author
Monika Arora, in her complaint, furthered that the Publisher till date has not returned the final text of the book to the authors along with any of the previous drafts. The author’s copyrighted material and intellectual property is still in the publisher’s possession. No official communication has been made by the publisher (Bloomsbury India) to the author explaining its actions. “Yet, an unauthorized version of the book has been mischievously released on social media through WhatsApp to hurt my goodwill, reputation and subvert any future sales of the book”, wrote the senior advocate, demanding action against Bloomsbury Publishing India Pvt Ltd., and the aforementioned media portals and activists.
Earlier in the day, in a press release, Monika Arora, who is also the convenor of the Group of Intellectuals and Academicians (GIA), had informed that she along with other authors of the book would be submitting a written complaint to the Delhi Police Commissioner today to take action not only against the publisher but also against few media organisation for deliberately publishing the contents of the book without any prior permission.
Bloomsbury leaks manuscript of ‘Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story’
Days after Bloomsbury India had decided to withdraw the publication of the book ‘Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story’, the publishing house had allegedly leaked the manuscript of the book on WhatsApp and had also shared it with a few media organisations.
Interestingly, before the manuscript was circulated on WhatsApp, the Left portal – ‘The Quint’ had got access to the manuscript. The Quint had even published a report, where it had tried to ‘fact-check’ the book. In its report, the Quint had also mentioned that the manuscript of the book has been accessed by them.
Following the leak of the book, questions were raised against the Quint on how did it manage to access a confidential book manuscript in the first place when access to the manuscript was limited to the authors and the publication house.
