On 3rd March, a team of Punjab police reached the residence of YouTuber Nikhil Singh who goes by the name “Desi Dude With Sign” on social media at around 8 AM. At that time, Nikhil was not at home and his family members were informed that the police reached his house based on an FIR under Section 295A, 153, 153A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 3 of Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act, 1986 has been registered in Satnampura Police Station in district Kapurthala, Punjab. The FIR had a mention of a video that Nikhil published on his YouTube channel exposing an alleged prostitution ring near Lovely Professional University.
I need your help for one of our YouTuber brothers, Desidudewithsign @Nikhilsingh21_ . He consistently creates pro-India content.
— Ashwini Shrivastava (@AshwiniSahaya) March 3, 2024
Two days ago, he criticized the AAP government, presenting evidence of prostitution being rampant near the LPU University campus, which is owned by… pic.twitter.com/UKQasRgxVU
OpIndia accessed the FIR registered in the matter. It turned out that an X handle “Warlock_Shabby” had shared a video clip of Nikhil’s video raising concerns over an alleged prostitution ring and anti-social activities running near Lovely Professional University (LPU) in Phagwara, Punjab. A person named Vipan Kumar approached the police against Warlock_Shabby and claimed that the video he shared of the Law Gate area near LPU had “derogatory language” against women. He also claimed that over some time, the X handle had shared derogatory content against Hindu religion and Christian religions that might hurt the religious sentiments of Hindus and Christians. He further claimed such a post might lead to a riot-like situation in the country. The X account Warlock_Shabby no longer exists.
Nikhil raised concerns about anti-social activities near Lovely Professional University
Notably, the FIR did not mention Nikhil’s name or the name of his channel anywhere. The clip of the video mentioned in the FIR was posted by Nikhil on his YouTube channel on 29th February. In the video, Nikhil raised concerns over the alleged prostitution ring rampant near the Law Gate of Lovely Professional University, where Nikhil himself earned his degree. In the video, he also raised the question of why there were four liquor stores nearby the area where hundreds of LPU students were living. He pointed out that LPU’s founder is Aam Aadmi Party’s Rajya Sabha MP and urged the state government to take immediate steps to curb the problem of anti-social activities around the college. OpIndia could not independently verify Nikhil’s claims.
Similarity to the case of Rachit Kaushik’s arrest
The case has a striking similarity with the case of Sab Loktantra’s founder Rachit Kaushik who was arrested by Punjab Police from Uttar Pradesh in February 2023. Kaushik was arrested from Muzaffarnagar. He was there to attend the wedding of his niece. At around 7 PM when he was accompanying his niece from the parlour to the wedding location. OpIndia’s investigation revealed that a case was filed against an X handle “noconversion”.
His family alleged that Kaushik was picked up by Punjab police as he spoke against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in his videos. A clip of such videos by Kaushik was shared by the ‘conversion’ account on X on 16th January. The clip shared talked about Arvind Kejriwal’s son and his alleged income from renting treadmills to CM’s house. Apart from that clip, there was no other video featuring Kaushik on that account. OpIndia could not find any other video of Kaushik posted by ‘conversion’ mentioning conversions being done by missionaries. Furthermore, we could not confirm whether this post and video led to Kaushik’s arrest.
Interestingly, the FIR that the family of Rachit Kaushik provided has no mention of Rachit at all. It only mentions the Twitter handle ‘no conversion’. The FIR also does not mention the video against Arvind Kejriwal and his son. It, therefore, seems likely that Rachit may have been arrested because of the video that was shared by the ‘noconversion’ Twitter handle. On 16th February, Kaushik was released from custody on bail. The case in the matter is underway.
OpIndia tried to reach out to Nikhil’s family and the concerned police station but could not connect.
