‘Gonna Be Hard But...’: Twitter MD Posts Amid Govt-Police Pressure

The Delhi Police had earlier alleged that Maheshwari was being ‘evasive’.

Twitter India managing director Manish Maheshwari

(Photo Courtesy: Facebook/@Manish345M)

Delhi Police on Thursday rubbished Twitter’s concern regarding the recent events and termed the statements of the microblogging giant as “mendacious”.

A day later, Twitter India Managing Director Manish Maheshwari, who was alleged to be evasive by the police, tweeted a slogan poster, which read, “It’s gonna be hard, but hard does not mean impossible,” possibly indicating the tussle between Twitter and the Centre.

Referring to Maheshwari, the Delhi Police had said in a statement yesterday, “Twitter India's subsidiary TCIPL's Managing Director chose to adopt a path of evasiveness instead of cooperation.”

On Monday, Delhi Police had visited Twitter India’s local offices in south Delhi’s Lado Sarai and Gurugram to serve notice after the social media platform had marked one of the tweets of BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra as ‘manipulated media’.

Patra had shared an alleged ‘toolkit’ of the Congress over COVID, accusing it of trying to defame the Prime Minister and the government.

The Police added that initially, Maheshwari had stated in his response that he was merely a sales head and had no role whatsoever in any operation relating to the content and, thereby, refused to join the enquiry.

The police started investigating the matter when Patra’s tweet was marked as ‘manipulated media’ and said it wanted to know how Twitter came to that conclusion, as without evidence in hand, Twitter wouldn’t have taken that call.