Will ask ‘toolkit’ suspect why he was at Tikri on R-Day: Cops
NEW DELHI: Delhi Police on Tuesday said it will ask Maharashtra engineer Shantanu Muluk, who allegedly created a social media toolkit on the ongoing farm protests, to explain why he was present at the Tikri border on January 26 when violence broke out at many places in the Capital during a tractor rally by farmers.
“Our technical probe to ascertain Muluk’s phone location shows that he was present in Delhi between January 21 and
27. And, that he was at Tikri border protest site on January
26. We will ask him to join the investigation and tell us what was he doing at Tikri border when farmers were taking out the tractor parade,” an officer associated with the investigation said on condition of anonymity.
The Bombay high court on Tuesday granted transit anticipatory bail to Muluk while reserving the order on a similar appeal by Mumbai-based lawyer Nikita Jacob, another accused in the case, for Wednesday.
On Saturday night, Delhi Police arrested 22-year-old climate activist Disha Ravi from Bengaluru on charges of sedition, intending to riot and criminal conspiracy, for editing and creating a toolkit, essentially a Google document.
The police alleged that the toolkit was created to spread misinformation and incite unrest. They also alleged that Ravi shared the document with Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg who tweeted it but later removed it.
Muluk has been accused of similar charges as Ravi.
Investigators said that Ravi created a WhatsApp group, International Farmers Strike, on December 6. Police said Jacob allegedly joined the group on December 11 while a few members of pro-Khalistani group, Poetic Justice Foundation (PJF), also joined it.
Muluk was added to the group on December 6, the police alleged, adding that the group was created to discuss the modalities of the Google toolkit document titled Global Farmer Strike and Global Day of Action, 26 January, backing the ongoing agitation by the farmers against the three laws passed by Parliament in September.
The three suspects also attended a meeting organised on video conferencing platform Zoom by the PJF on January 11 this year, investigators said.
The police said they have written to Zoom and WhatsApp, seeking details such as the identities of the participants, the creator and administrator of the group, the meeting coordinator, apart from the deleted chats, videos and documents.
“These details will help us ascertain the sequence of events leading to the creation of the Google toolkit documents and the role each participant played in it. Disha deleted the WhatsApp group soon after Greta Thunberg accidentally posted the entire toolkit document on Twitter and later deleted it,” said a senior police officer associated with the case, requesting anonymity.
The police’s decision to arrest Ravi and charge the activists has drawn sharp criticism from activists and Opposition politicians.
On Tuesday, Karnataka Congress chief DK Shivakumar attacked the Centre. “Arrest of Disha Ravi is an attack to weaken the moral strength of India’s Youth and make dissent illegal. Police action against her, using a concocted ‘Toolkit’ conspiracy violates legal norms. Why not approach a competent court before arresting a young woman?” Shivakumar tweeted.
Activists from various organisations say creating a toolkit was standard operating procedure for advocacy and media outreach, and did not constitute a crime as it was entirely up to people whether or not to follow what toolkits suggested.
The Left-wing All India Students’ Association (AISA) staged a protest at the Delhi Police headquarters on Tuesday, demanded Ravi’s immediate release and accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of running an “anti-democracy campaign”.
Police said Ravi’s interrogation, and examination of her laptop and mobile phone showed that she deleted a series of emails related to the toolkit. Efforts to retrieve those emails are being made, they said.
A second police officer, who did not want to be named, said their investigation so far has shown PJF founder Mo Dhaliwal contacted Ravi, Jacob and Muluk through a Canada-based woman named Puneet.
“Puneet got in touch with Jacob in the first week of December and was told about the PJF’s ‘bigger plans’ pertaining to the farmers’ agitation. We have reason to believe that after Jacob agreed to be part of the plan, she roped in Muluk and Disha. Muluk is the common link between Jacob and Disha. Disha’s direct link with Thunberg could be the reason why she was included in the toolkit plan,” the second officer said.
Police said their probe pointed to the alleged involvement of another PJF member, Anita Lal.
“We have found that Disha, Jacob, Muluk and others communicated each other through an email created on PJF’s domain apart from other secured messaging apps,” the second officer added.
THE BOMBAY HC GRANTED TRANSIT ANTICIPATORY BAIL TO MULUK WHILE RESERVING THE ORDER ON APPEAL BY NIKITA JACOB, ANOTHER ACCUSED
In the Union Budget, finance minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman announced several policies for the financial sector, including, most notably, the privatisation of two of the 12 public sector banks (PSBs). New reports suggest that Bank of Maharashtra, Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank and the Central Bank of India have been shortlisted with this objective. This is welcome as PSBs have, for long, been bleeding the Indian exchequer, symbolised in yet another recapitalisation of ₹20,000 crore in the same budget. PSBs have also created problems of dual regulation as highlighted by former RBI officials, Urjit Patel and Viral Acharya, in their respective books.
The markets will keenly watch which two are finally chosen and, more importantly, who gets control of these banks. The Indian banking sector is getting concentrated with limited players.
Whether the two banks go to existing players or new ones has to be seen in the context of recent controversies around whether Indian corporates should be allowed to own banks. The Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation Act, 1961, will also be amended, which will enable depositors to get their savings up to ₹5 lakh when the bank is under moratorium. Another important step is to set up an Asset Reconstruction Company Limited and Asset Management Company, which will buy the stressed assets of PSBs and sell it to other investors.
Apart from privatising banks and establishing what appears to be akin to a bad bank, the government has also decided to privatise a general insurance company and make legislative changes for the listing of Life Insurance Corporation (LIC). This has implications for the financial sector as the government owns LIC, and LIC not just owns Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) but also has stakes in several other financial organisations. There is also a proposal to increase foreign direct investment in insurance from 49% to 74%.
These decisions are monumental as they reverse a long history of nationalisation of the financial sector. LIC was nationalised in 1956, banks were nationalised in 1969 (and 1980) and general insurance companies were nationalised in 1972.
As we move forward with reprivatising banks and insurance, the idea of starting a new Development Financial Institution (DFI) also takes us back to the 1960s. We already have several existing DFIs and most are either struggling or have got converted to banks as their business model was no longer viable. Unless this new DFI has better governance structures and clear targets avoiding turf wars with existing DFIs, a repeat cannot be ruled out as is also seen from the initial reports.
A better idea to finance infrastructure is to develop the corporate bond market, which Indian capital markets have long been waiting for. The government has proposed setting up a body which will “purchase investment grade debt securities both in stressed and normal times and help in the development of the bond market”. This will be like the primary dealer system established in the 1990s to build activity in government bond markets.
RBI’s policy created news in a totally unexpected domain. It has now allowed retail investors to open a securities account with itself to buy and sell government securities. For long, authorities have tried to open government bond markets to retail investors. This benefits the government as it broadens the investor base and gives retail investors more investment options.
As financial intermediaries have struggled to deepen this retail market, RBI has decided to take matters into its own hands. But even if this is not the intent, the move does put RBI in competition with banks and mutual funds for retail savings. In case of a crisis in any bank, depositors now have the incentive to shift their funds not just between banks but also to RBI. Apart from this structural reform, RBI has also announced that it is studying whether India needs a Central Bank Digital Currency.
Put it all together and it is clear that the world of Indian finance is set for major changes.