Pune: Gujarat independent MLA Jignesh Mevani and some other persons have been booked by Pune rural police for allegedly creating a fake photo of columnist Shefali Vaidya and circulating on social media.
The photo shows Shefali standing next to Art of Living Founder Sri Sri Ravishankar and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and had a parallel photograph from a Bollywood movie, ‘Oh My God’ (OMG), which is about self-proclaimed godman taking advantage of people’s faith.
Shefali (45), a resident of Bhugaon, has lodged an FIR in this regard with Paud police station under Pune rural police. Mevani had posted the image on May 29 on his twitter account with credit given to a Facebook page IndianAtheists.
Mevani had deleted the post a day later. “I am told that this is a photoshopped image. Apologies for posting it without verification. Deleting my previous tweet now and will be careful in future. We all should be careful abt this and whenever we get to know that it’s fabricated we should delete it,” he tweeted.
In a statement, police said that the accused persons have been charged for offences under section 500 (punishment for defamation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and relevant sections of the Information Technology (IT) Act.
Earlier this year, Pune city police had registered case against Mevani and student leader Umar Khalid for allegedly creating communal disharmony through their speeches at Elgar Parishad held at Shaniwarwada in Pune on December 31, which led to violence on January 1, during the 200th year celebrations of the battle of Koregaon-Bhima.
