Google CEO Sundar Pichai booked in UP, name later removed from FIR, says local police

Google CEO Sundar Pichai and 17 others were booked in Uttar Pradesh's Varanasi on February 6 over a video that allegedly defamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but the name of tech giant's top official was later removed from FIR, said police on Friday.

The First Information Report or FIR was filed following a complaint by a local resident who claimed that he got over 8,500 threat calls on his mobile phone after he objected to the video that he first came across in a WhatsApp group and later on YouTube, where it has over five lakh views, the officials said.

The FIR has been lodged under Indian Penal Code sections 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 506 (criminal intimidation), 500 (defamation), 120B (party to a criminal conspiracy). As per a report by PTI, Charges under the Information Technology Act's section 67 (publishing or transmitting obscene material) have also been invoked against the accused in the FIR.

Apart from Pichai, some of the other names mentioned in the FIR are Sanjay Kumar Gupta, Kenneth Hoi Wai, Vishal Ghazipuri, Sapna Bodh, Chandan Kumar, C.S. Badal, Sujit Gautam, Hriday Raj Kapoor, Sanjeev Kumar, Suraj Krishna, Ashish Nayak, B.K. Singh, Pankaj, S.N. Budh, VC Music Company and Jai Bhim Recording Studio, as per reports. 

Meanwhile, earlier this month, the Delhi Police had filed an FIR against the "pro-Khalistan" creators of a "toolkit", which was shared by teen climate activist Greta Thunberg and others on Twitter in connection with the farmers' protest, alleging it aimed to wage a "social, cultural and economic war against the Government of India". Asked whether the FIR has been registered against Thunberg, Special CP (Crime) Praveer Ranjan had said that nobody was named in the case. The case against unnamed persons has been registered on charges of criminal conspiracy, sedition, and various other sections of the Indian Penal Code, he said.

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(With PTI Inputs)