• Source:JND
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Maharashtra cyber police mistakenly booked popular YouTuber Dhruv Rathee after a parody account with the same name posted a fake message about the daughter of Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on X (formerly Twitter), a senior police official said on Saturday. The parody account had claimed that Anjali Birla, an IRAS officer and daughter of Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, had cleared the coveted civil services examination without even appearing for the recruitment test.

The state cyber department, without verifying the owner of X account, registered a case against the YouTuber Dhruv Rathee under various sections of Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS) under various sections including defamation, intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace, and statement leading to mischief, as well as the IT Act, the official said.

However, the X bio of the parody account read: “This is the fan and parody account and not affiliated with the original account of @dhruv_rathee. Not impersonating anyone. This account is Parody.”

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The case was registered against Dhruv Rathee on the complaint of a relative of Birlas, the official said.

However, when pointed out that the fake message was posted by a parody account, not the YouTuber Dhruv Rathee, the official said that we are investigating the matter.

Following the row over fake news, the parody account posted an apology over X.

The parody account on Saturday posted another tweet saying, “As directed by @MahaCyber1, I have deleted all my posts and comments on Anjali Birla, I would like to apologize as I was unaware of the facts and copied someone else's tweets and shared it.”

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Meanwhile, YouTuber Dhruv Rathee slammed a national daily for publishing the news about the case against him without verifying. Tagging the newspaper in his tweet, Rathee asked, "Why is your newspaper’s front page spreading fake news about me?"

"Go use your eyes to see that this alleged post was done by some random parody Twitter account. I have nothing to do with this," the YouTuber added.

"This alleged post was done by some random parody Twitter account. I have nothing to do with this.

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