The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has summoned a senior Facebook official, and asked him to state what action the company took against a video posted by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Instagram, The Times of India reported.
The child rights body has alleged that the video revealed the identity of the family of a nine-year-old Dalit girl, who was allegedly raped, murdered and forcibly cremated in Delhi.
The NCPCR has asked Satya Yadav, head of the Trust and Safety department at Facebook India, to appear before it on August 17 through video conferencing. Facebook owns photo and video sharing platform Instagram.
The development comes on a day when Twitter restored Gandhi’s account after having locked it for a week. Earlier, the NCPCR had written to Twitter as well, seeking action against Gandhi for sharing a photo of the family of the same girl.
On Friday, the NCPCR had first written to Facebook in connection with the video on Instagram, and had alleged that the faces of the girl’s parents were clearly visible in it, PTI reported. The child rights body demanded the removal of the video, and sought action against Gandhi’s Instagram profile for violating provisions of the Juvenile Justice Act, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and the Indian Penal Code.
The girl was allegedly raped and murdered on August 1 after she went to get water from a cooler at a crematorium in Delhi. The accused are said to have forcibly cremated her later. Several Opposition leaders, including from the Congress, have called for stringent punishment to the culprits.
After Gandhi’s Twitter account was locked, the Congress accused the social media giant of bias. In a YouTube video statement titled “Twitter’s dangerous game”, Gandhi alleged that Twitter was not a neutral and objective platform and was “beholden to the government.”
The Congress had pointed to a tweet by BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya from October 2020, alleging that it disclosed the identity of a rape victim’s family but did not face similar action.
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