TMC's Saket Gokhale arrested for spreading fake news over Morbi bridge collapse

Jaipur, Dec 6: Gujarat Police arrested Trinamool Congress (TMC) spokesperson Saket Gokhale in Jaipur early on Tuesday for spreading fake news in connection with the Morbi bridge collapse.

 

A complaint was filed by senior BJP functionary Bhalabhai Kothari because of Gokhale’s tweet dated December 1 in which he had posted “screenshots” of purported news reports claiming Rs 30 crore was spent for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Morbi in Gujarat.

 

 

Gokhale’s tweet, which cited the fake news clippings, stated, "RTI reveals that Modi’s visit to Morbi for a few hours cost Rs 30 cr. Of this Rs 5.5. Cr was purely for "welcome, event management, & photography". 135 victims who died got Rs 4 lac ex-gratia each i.e. Rs 5 cr. Just Modi’s event management & PR costs more than life of 135 people."

 

However, there was no such RTI and no such media report as claimed by Gokhale.

 

 

According to TMC MP Derek O’Brien’s tweet on Tuesday morning, Gokhale took a 9 pm flight from New Delhi to Jaipur on Monday and when he landed, “Gujarat police was at the airport in Rajasthan, waiting for him and picked him up."

 

 

"At 2 in the morning on Tue, he called his Ma and told her that they are taking him to Ahmedabad and he would reach Ahmedabad by noon today. The police let him make that one two-minute phone call and then confiscated his phone and all his belongings. The cooked up case is filed with the Ahmedabad cyber cell about Saket’s tweet on the Morbi bridge collapse. All this cannot silence @AITCofficial and the Opposition. BJP taking political vendetta to another level."

 

Gokhale has been booked under IPC sections 469 (forgery to harm reputation), 471 (using as genuine a forged document/electronic record), 501 (printing defamatory matter), and 505(b)( statements conducing to public mischief).