Filmmaker Avinash Das Detained For Sharing Amit Shah's Photo With Arrested Bureaucrat

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat police detained filmmaker Avinash Das from Mumbai on Tuesday in a case related to sharing on Twitter a photo of Union Home Minister Amit Shah with arrested IAS officer Pooja Singhal, an official said.
He was being brought to Ahmedabad for further action, the official said.

"We detained Das from Mumbai on Tuesday. He is being brought to Ahmedabad by our team for further legal process," the city crime branch's Assistant Commissioner of Police D P Chudasama said.

The Ahmedabad crime branch had registered an FIR against the Mumbai-based filmmaker under Section 469 (forgery) of the Indian Penal Code as well as provisions of the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act and the Information Technology Act, as he had also posted on his Instagram and Facebook accounts another photo of a woman wearing the national flag.

The FIR against 46-year-old Mr Das was registered in June after he shared a photo showing Singhal, who had been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case, whispering something to Shah.

The filmmaker was also booked for insulting national honour by sharing on his Instagram and Facebook accounts a photo of a woman wearing the national flag.

A sessions court here in June rejected Mr Das' plea for anticipatory bail, observing that he had deliberately claimed the photo of Amit Shah with IAS officer Pooja Singhal was taken a few days before the latter's arrest, with the intention to "tarnish the image of the Home Minister".