NEW DELHI: A team of Delhi Police reached the offices of Twitter India in Delhi and Gurugram on Monday evening to "serve notice" in connection with its probe into the alleged toolkit case.
A source in Delhi Police told IANS, "The Special Cell has sent a notice to Twitter. In its reply, Twitter said it has no more knowledge in the matter. So a team of Special Cell officers went to the offices of Twitter to record the statements of the persons there, but they were found closed."
The source also clarified that there no raids or searches are being carried out at the offices of Twitter in Delhi and Gurugram.
Later, Delhi Police issued a statement which said, "The Delhi Police team went to Twitter office to serve a notice to Twitter, as a part of routine process. This was necessitated as we wanted to ascertain who is the right person to serve a notice, as replies by Twitter India MD have been very ambiguous."
The action comes after the Special Cell sent a notice to Twitter India MD Manish Maheshwari over the alleged toolkit case on May 21.
Earlier in the day, the Delhi Police had said, "We are inquiring into a complaint in which clarification is sought from Twitter regarding the classification of a tweet by (BJP spokesperson) Sambit Patra as 'manipulative'."
The statement said that "it appears that Twitter has some information which is not known to us on the basis of which it has classified it as such".
"This information is relevant to the inquiry. The Special Cell, which is conducting the inquiry, wants to find out the truth. Twitter, which has claimed to know the underlying truth, should clarify, " the statement added.
In its notice to Twitter India MD, the Delhi Police had asked Maheshwari to be present in the office of the Special Cell on May 22 at 1 p.m. with all the relevant documents.
The Delhi Police also said that they were carrying out a preliminary inquiry pertaining to the ‘toolkit' allegedly released by the Congress.
A war of words had erupted between the Congress and the BJP last week after Sambit Patra released a set of pages alleging to be the ‘toolkit' of the Congress to defame the Narendra Modi government.
The Congress had approached the Delhi Police with a complaint against BJP chief J.P. Nadda, Patra, B.L. Santosh, Union minister Smriti Irani and others.