Toolkit case: Shantanu gets protection from arrest till March 9

A Delhi court on Thursday granted protection from arrest till March 9 to Shantanu Muluk in the Toolkit case and directed the police to not take any coercive action against the accused till thenFearing arrest Muluk had moved the Patiala House Court in Delhi seeking anticipatory bail on Tuesday three days before the end of tenday transit remand granted to him by the Bombay High Court on February 16Additional Sessions Judge Dharmendra Rana said Matter adjourned Now listed for March 9 Meanwhile no coercive action be taken against the accusedThis came after Additional Public Prosecutor Irfan Ahmed sought seven more days to file the reply in the bail applicationDuring the course of interrogation replies were inconsiderate and contradictory We need to question him in detail We will file a reply when the whole interrogation is completed he addedAdvocate Vrinda Grover appeared for Muluk in the case On the contrary she told the court that her client has been goodIn the bail petition Muluk has asserted that he merely created the document with information on the agitation which was then edited by others without his knowledgeHe along with climate activist Disha Ravi and Nikita Jacob are facing charges of conspiracy and sedition in the case related to the farmers protest The police said that the Toolkit was a sinister design to defame India and cause violenceMuluk asserted that he helped collate information about the site of farmers protests and formulate it in the form of a map for easy referenceThe Toolkit clearly shows that there is absolutely no connection with their social media support for the farmers protests and with any violence whatsoeverThere is absolutely nothing in the Toolkit that advises doing anything unlawful he said adding that all it talks about is social media and offline peaceful protests and contacting elected representativesHe further emphasized that there was nothing objectionable about the content included by him in the document and had no control over the document as others were also permitted to edit the sameHe said that he has never had any contact with any person outside India in relation to the Toolkit while clarifying the allegation put forth by police on his links with the Canadabased Khalistani organisations Poetic Justice foundation and Sikhs for JusticeThat there may be differing views on internationalizing a protest but the same is certainly not illegal Simply talking to persons from outside India cannot be criminalised the petition saidHe further claimed to not know about the cofounder of Poetic Justice foundation MO Dhaliwal and stated in the bail plea that nothing objectionable was said in the zoom call on January 11 of which he and Jacob were part ofMuluk and Jacob had joined the investigation at Delhi Polices Cyber Cell office in Dwarka on February 22 and were confronted with Disha Ravi Disha was granted bail on February 23This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever