New Delhi: The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has come down hard on the microblogging site Twitter for ‘ignoring’ its directions and failing to submit action taken report on comedian Kunal Kamra’s doctored video. In a letter, it has issued summon to the India Twitter Director and sought clarification over its failure to comply with the order.
The child rights body had asked Twitter to submit action taken report within 7 days of notice issued by it. The notice for the same was issued to social media giant on May 5, 2022.
The commission has directed the Twitter India director to appear in person via video conferencing on May 18 with details of the action taken report in the case. He has also been told to explain the reasons behind delay in submission of report.
The comedian had shared a morphed video a child singing a patriotic song in front of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Germany. As the doctored video led to chaos & commotion on social media, the child rights body took objection to it and asked Twitter to take down comedian tweet featured the ‘motivated’ video. However, as the video created an intense furore & wave of condemnation, the comedian himself deleted the doctored video.
NCPCR had said that the video posted by comedian reeked of political agenda and made strong observations against using minors for propagating political ideologies.
How controversy broke out, comedian got father’s rap
Within minutes of Kamra posting the video, barrage of comments surfaced on Twitter, with many taking strong exception to comedian for modifying the video content for furthering his political agenda. The child’s father also blasted the comedian and told him in no uncertain terms to refrain from using his kid’s name for his own political interests.
In the original video, the young boy had sung ‘‘Hey Janmabhoomi Bharat” but in the morphed video, the comedian replaced the song with “Mehengayi daayan khaaye jaat hain.”
