The Delhi police have registered an FIR and initiated a probe against unidentified people over complaints that former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma was receiving death threats. Sharma has been in the crosshairs of Islamists over her alleged blasphemous comments on Prophet Muhammad.
According to reports, the FIR has been registered under IPC sections 153 A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence), 506 (criminal intimidation), 507 (Criminal intimidation by an anonymous communication) and 509 (Word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) against unknown people.
“Based on the FIR, we have initiated a probe into the matter,” a senior police official was quoted as saying.
The action comes a day after Nupur Sharma released a statement where she alleged a security threat to her family after many media houses published her suspension letter with her address.
On June 5, hours after BJP suspended its spokesperson Nupur Sharma, news agency ANI and journalists associated with media house NDTV amongst others had published the suspension letter that had her address. ANI later deleted the tweet, but by then, the address was already made public. It is not yet clear how the suspension letter by the BJP reached the media houses without masking her address.
Nupur Sharma then issued a statement on Twitter where she asked the media to refrain from making her address public. She said, “I request all media houses and everybody else not to make my address public. There is a security threat to my family.”
Sharma has since withdrawn her “controversial” comments and apologized, but the threats are still following her around.