Award-winning journalist Rana Ayyub has been on receiving end of malicious allegations as well as vicious threats for nearly a month, after a morphed tweet in her name was circulated on the internet. In connection with the same case, Mumbai cyber police, on Saturday, arrested Ayush Srivastava and Vidyanshi Trivedi. Both are journalists working with a digital news organisation, “Scoop Beats.” This takes the total number of arrests so far to three, the first being a 24-year-old college dropout from Bhopal.
According to police officials, the arrested have been identified as Vidyanshi Trivedi and Ayush Srivastava, both from Uttar Pradesh. The fabricated video made by them shows an image of a tweet purportedly posted by her, saying that she “hates India and Indians”. They had gone on to make several false claims about her, including that she was aided by Pakistan and had been banned from Saudi Arabia.
“We had issued notices to both the accused, asking them to present themselves for inquiries. They came to the police station on Saturday and after inquiries established their offence, they were both placed under arrest,” an officer who is part of the investigation said. When contacted, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cyber) Rashmi Karandikar confirmed the arrests. Rana Ayyub took to Twitter on Saturday to express her appreciation and gratitude for the Mumbai cyber police.
