Disha Ravi, one of the founders of ‘Fridays for Future’, was on Sunday arrested by the Delhi Police in connection with Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg’s ‘toolkit’ tweet on the ongoing farmers’ protests in India.
According to officials, Ravi is 21 years old and lives in Bengaluru. She was active in allegedly disseminating the toolkit, which Thunberg had referred to in her post for the farmers and attached a Google document with details.
The cyber-crime cell of the Delhi Police registered an FIR on charges of “sedition”, “criminal conspiracy” and “promoting hatred” against the creators of the ‘toolkit’.
The 18-year-old Climate Change activist deleted her tweet. Screenshots of her post went viral, accusing her of “international conspiracy”. Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut, too, reacted strongly accusing Thunberg of hatching “international plan to systematically unstable India”.
Thunberg later on Wednesday posted a fresh tweet with an “updated toolkit”, which caused further furore on social media.
Twitter exploded with allegations that the document shared mistakenly by the young environmentalist shows how her tweets “weren’t organic and plan of a larger PR campaign to malign India”.
On Tuesday, American pop singer Rihanna and Thunberg had tweeted about the internet shutdown at farmers’ protest sites around New Delhi.
Thunberg’s tweet drew the ire of environmental activists in India who called out the global ‘School Strike for Climate’ founder for tweeting in the matter while allaying her duties as an environmentalist. Professor Shamika Ravi pointed out the irony of a climate activist tweeting in the matter while turning a blind eye to certain farming practices practiced by agriculturalists in India. Rihanna was also called out.
