Noida: An FIR has been registered against RJD national spokespersons Priyanka Bharti and Kanchana Yadav for allegedly circulating a misleading video on social media and falsely linking it to the recent workers’ unrest in Noida.Police said the video was recorded on April 11 in Madhya Pradesh’s Shahdol district, but was shared online with claims tying it to the Noida protests. Officers claimed the posts, which have since been taken down, created an atmosphere of fear and mistrust with the potential to disrupt public order.An FIR was lodged on a complaint by sub-inspector Sushil Kumar, a media cell official of the commissionerate, who accused both Bharti and Yadav of spreading provocative and false information. The case has been registered under BNS Section 353(1)(b, along with sections 66 and 66D of the Information Technology Act.The SI said Bharti on Tuesday shared a video of a youth creating a public nuisance and falsely linked it to the ongoing workers’ protests in Noida, while captioning it as evidence of the govt’s disregard for the legitimate demands of industrial workers. Yadav shared Bharti’s post and claimed the video was shot in Noida, and allegedly sought to connect the protests to Pakistan.Bharti has around 95,000 followers on X, and Yadav has more than 65,000 followers.In a post on X on Wednesday, Bharti claimed that she has taken down her posts after the UP Police clarified that the video was shot in MP. “I had shared a video in which a policeman was beating up a person. It was shared on social media as a video from Noida and I reposted it and said that the policeman should face action. Later, I found out it was a video from Madhya Pradesh, so I deleted my post and even reposted the #UPpolice post, which clarified that what I had posted was not true. As far as I see this case, it is clearly politically motivated,” it read.Police have also registered two more FIRs under BNS Section 351(1)(b) (criminal intimidation) and Sections 66 and 66D of the IT Act against two more social media accounts. One is against a Facebook profile named Jitendra Kumar Dausa for sharing content that also falsely portrayed the Shahdol incident as part of the Noida protests. The second targets an X user, Katyayani, who posted a video from an unrelated incident and linked it to the Noida protests.On Wednesday, there were isolated reports of protests at a few spots, including Sector 63 industrial area, Sector 135 and Dadri. But protesters were dispersed by police.Senior police officials, including Commissioner Laxmi Singh and Uttar Pradesh DGP Rajeev Krishna, have said that police have increased surveillance and are monitoring activities on WhatsApp and other social media platforms to trace individuals and organisations trying to incite violence.On Tuesday, police said they arrested 396 people in connection with violence during Monday’s labour protests in which mobs vandalised property and torched cars. Seven FIRs have been filed at different police stations under BNS sections that include rioting, voluntarily causing hurt, assault or use of criminal force otherwise than on grave provocation, common intention and wrongful restraint.
