A team of West Bengal Police officers arrived in Noida on Monday, 9 February, to arrest a journalist in connection with the alleged ‘fake’ chats attributed to TMC MP Mahua Moitra. However, the attempt failed, and the West Bengal Police were unable to take the journalist into custody.
The West Bengal police alleged the journalist fled because of intervention from the local police. The Noida Police, however, dismissed the allegations as baseless and unfounded.
Fuming at the development, Ms Moitra took to X and accused the Noida Police of “lying” and taking directions from BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya. She shared a video in which a man is heard speaking on the phone, saying police had come to his house over a social media post.
WB police went to execute a warrant. See how accused calls BJP troll army chief @amitmalviya who threatens Noida Police with “Aap Kuch Nahi Karenge” . Everything is caught on video so @noidapolice should stop lying. pic.twitter.com/XIWgZAe0JQ
— Mahua Moitra (@MahuaMoitra) February 12, 2026
The issue erupted after tweets showing a picture of an alleged private conversation between Mahua Moitra and Prashant Kishor triggered a social media storm, following which the TMC MP filed an FIR naming several social media users for propagating what she claims are forged chat pictures.
The police launched an investigation into the case and traced the origin of the post to an X handle run by one Surajit Dasgupta. After he failed to appear before the investigating officer despite being served a notice under Section 41A, a non-bailable warrant was issued against him by the Chief Judicial Magistrate’s court in Nadia district of West Bengal.
According to Krishnanagar SP IPS K Amarnath, a four-member team from Krishnanagar reached the accused’s residence in Noida on Monday morning and detained him.
He claimed that while the arrest memo was being prepared, around 10 to 15 Noida Police personnel arrived at the spot and took the Bengal officers to the local police station. During the one-and-a-half-hour period when they were kept there, the accused managed to leave the house and is now missing.
West Bengal Police have said they were not given a clear reason for being stopped and that the action allowed Dasgupta to escape.
However, Noida Police dismissed the allegations and issued a clarification. The SHO of Phase-2 Police Station said the Bengal team had reached without prior intimation and the standard procedure wasn’t carried out before the raid was conducted.
DCP (Central Noida) Shakti Mohan Avasthy rejected claims that the local police had obstructed the West Bengal team, calling the allegations “baseless and unfounded.” According to Noida Police sources, the Krishnanagar police team had first reported to the Phase 2 police station and informed officials about the purpose of their visit. Following this, local officers, including the officer in charge of the Sector 110 police outpost, were assigned to accompany them to the Lotus Panache housing complex.
A Noida police official said that when the team reached the flat in Tower 12, the journalist’s wife answered the door. “CCTV footage from the society clearly shows that he was never detained. He was not present at the residence, and the Bengal police conducted a search of the premises,” the officer said. The official added that the SHO of the Phase 2 police station also reached the spot while the search operation was underway. Despite checking with residents and continuing the search for several hours, the teams were unable to locate him.
Another officer involved in the operation said attempts were made to contact the journalist over the phone, but his handset remained switched off. “The conversation between his wife and the visiting police team took place in Bengali. From what we could gather, she told them he had stepped out for work. Initially, the society’s security staff stopped the Bengal police team, but after local police intervened, they were allowed to proceed,” the officer said.
Bengal Police uses 4-month old murder and kidnapping case to seek personal details of X handles who were threatened with FIR by TMC MP
The controversy has widened beyond the attempted arrest to what critics describe as a targeted crackdown on social media users who mocked or questioned Mahua Moitra over the alleged leaked chat screenshots. Earlier this week, several prominent X handles reported receiving platform emails informing them that the West Bengal Police had sought their personal details, including phone numbers, email IDs and IP information.
Among them was Ankur Singh, who runs the popular “Political Kida” account, and who publicly said he was stunned to discover that the police request for his data was linked not to any online offence, but to an October 2025 kidnapping-and-murder case in West Bengal, a case he says he has no connection with and a state he claims he has not visited in over two decades.
The timing has raised eyebrows because just days earlier, Moitra had publicly posted screenshots of several of these same handles, including Ankur Singh, Tanisha Vashistha, Surajit Dasgupta, fauzdar15 and saffronhawk, claiming she had filed FIRs against them over the circulation of the alleged chats. Shortly thereafter, the West Bengal Police issued notices to X seeking their data in connection with the unrelated homicide case, effectively dragging online critics from different states into a serious criminal investigation. The users have alleged that this amounts to an attempt to intimidate and silence them, while Moitra has maintained that the chats are forged and that those circulating them should face legal consequences.
