Meet (if you haven’t already!) Lutyens Spice, Lutyens Insider and Lutyens Masala. These three Twitter handles run by anonymous people are named after Lutyens’ Delhi, where MPs and bureaucrats live in spacious bungalows, and have been doling out defamatory, inflammatory, suggestive, bitter and purely speculative information (read gossip) without any evidence since October 2014.
Lutyens Insider (Twitter Bio: Journalist. Political beat. Burdened by peer pressure not to reveal true self. So letting you know the truth) is now in trouble with the law because Swati Chaturvedi, a PIB accredited investigative journalist, finally decided that enough was enough.
With 20 years of experience working for the Statesman, Indian Express, Hindustan Times and Zee News, Swati Chaturvedi is among the many journalists who has had run-ins with Lutyens Insider. Chaturvedi has complained to Twitter India but is yet to receive a response. She has registered an FIR and will now be deposing before a magistrate.
The tipping point for Chaturvedi came when Lutyens Insider publicly accused her of ‘stalking Rahul Gandhi for physical relationship’.
Finally, Chaturvedi decided enough was enough when this came her way:
This handle has a wide following of over 40,000 and this campaign of sexual harassment, defamation & character assassination is now crossing all limits’
— Swati Chaturvedi, Journalist
Chaturvedi has registered an FIR with the Vasant Vihar police station in New Delhi, under sections the IPC Section 354 (Outraging the modestly of woman), Section 354A (Sexual Harassment), Section 499 (Criminal Defamation) and the IT Act.
For her courage, Chaturvedi has received huge applause and support from all quarters.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)