Kozhikode: The Vadakara Police, investigating the 'kafir screenshot' case for the past 110 days, are yet to identify the creator of the communal message that hit the Vadakara constituency on the eve of the Lok Sabha election, but the trail is now leading to phones of prominent CPM supporters and leaders.
In a statement to the High Court of Kerala on Tuesday, August 13, the Vadakara Station House Officer (SHO) said the police have impounded the mobile phone of DYFI Vadakara Block Committee president Ribesh R S for a forensic test, after finding him to be one of the earliest persons to spread the purportedly fabricated message. Police also impounded the phone of one Vahab, the admin of Porali Shaji, a faceless but vociferously pro-CPM Facebook page. (Porali Shaji had zealously guarded the identity of the admin and this is the first time his real name is revealed. However, the police report does not disclose his full identity or whereabouts, only that Vahab is the son of Abdu.)
The report also does not mention who Ribesh is. But DYFI leaders confirmed he is one of them, and that he is a teacher at Mappila Lower Primary School, Arangot, and a resident of Panikkotti ward in Vadakara municipality. The police report said Ribesh admitted to having posted the communal screenshot in a WhatsApp group called 'Red Encounter' at 2.13 pm on April 25. But he told police that "he could not reveal from where he obtained the communal post". The parliament elections were held in Kerala on April 26.
The report said that Ribesh's mobile phone was sent to the District Forensic Science Laboratory to know whether the screenshot was created by him; and if not, to find the origin of the post.
When Onmanorama contacted Ribesh over the phone, he disconnected the call as soon as the 'kafir screenshot' was mentioned and later did not respond to multiple calls and messages sent to his phone.
DYFI Kozhikode District secretary Shyju Kunnummal said that Ribesh had told him that he did post the screenshot in a few WhatsApp groups but could not recall where he got the message.
An attempt to portray UDF as communal
The Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) is the youth front of the ruling CPM. The party went to town with the screenshot on April 25, a day before voting, slamming the IUML and the Congress for seeking votes for Shafi Parambil on communal lines.
The most prominent CPM leader who shared the post was a State Committee member and former MLA of Kuttiadi K K Lathika. Porali Shaji, with 8 lakh followers, also shared the screenshot that read: "Shafi is a pious young man who prays five times a day and the other is a non-Muslim kafir female candidate; let's think whom should we vote for".
The message was spread in the name of Muhammad Khasim PK, Kozhikode district Secretary of the Muslim Students' Federation (MSF), the students' wing of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML). It was purportedly posted in a WhatsApp group named 'Youth League Nedumbramanna', which apparently did not exist.
The IUML and its ally, the Congress immediately alleged that the CPM was behind the "fabricated message", intended to polarise the voters of Vadakara.
Khasim said he first saw the message posted in his name on the pro-CPM Facebook page 'Ambadimukk Sakhakkal - Kannur' in the afternoon of April 25. The page had around 1 lakh followers. He immediately went to the Rural District Police Chief and then to Vadakara police station to file a case. However, the Vadakara police did not register an FIR for Khasim's complaint.
Vadakara police, however, registered the first case (410/2024) on the matter based on the complaint filed by CPM leader C Bhaskaran, who accused Khasim of spreading hatred in society. Police invoked Section 153 A of the IPC against Khasim for promoting enmity between two communities on religious grounds.
A second case was filed (411/2024) late on April 25 based on the complaint of Nidumbramanna Youth League branch committee general secretary Ismail M T, who told the police that the WhatsApp group in which the message was posted did not exist, and Khasim was a victim of identity theft and criminal forgery. An attempt was made in his name to spread disharmony in society.
But the police invoked only milder charges of Section 153 of IPC (provoking riots through illegal means) and Section 120 (o) of the Kerala Police Act (creating nuisance through means of communication) in the second FIR.
When the police did not find the culprits behind the screenshot after 50 days, Khasim approached the High Court seeking direction from the police to conduct a free and fair investigation.
Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas, hearing the petition, first asked the Vadakara Police to submit the progress report of the investigation on May 31. The police submitted the report on June 10 saying they could not find any evidence of Khasim creating or posting such a message. But they did not give him a clean chit. They, however, made Facebook an accused in the case for not removing the communal posts from the pro-CPM pages despite repeated requests.
The UDF found it laughable because the police did not book the CPM leaders and admins of those pages for posting the communal message.
On July 29, Justice Thomas asked the police to submit the case diary of the investigation by August 12. The SHO, instead, submitted an additional statement on August 13.
The case diary
During the investigation, police identified two admins of 'Ambadimukk Sakhakkal Kannur' through the phone numbers on June 28. They were Maneesh and Sajeev.
On June 29, police took the statement of Maneesh, who said he got the screenshot from a WhatsApp group named 'Red Battalion'. A day ahead of Lok Sabha elections, the screenshot was posted by one Amal Ram at 2.34 pm.
Maneesh told police that he deleted the post within an hour because he grew suspicious of the authenticity of the screenshot. (After a few weeks, he deactivated the page, too.) Police examined Maneesh's iPhone X and verified his statement.
On June 30, police took the statement of Amal Ram. He told police that he got the screenshot from another WhatsApp group called Red Encounter. Amal's iPhone 13 Pro was also examined. The screenshot was posted by Ribesh at 2.13 pm on April 25. Police examined Ribesh's Redme Note 7 phone but could not find out from where he got the screenshot.
Vahab, the admin of Porali Shaji, told police that he posted the screenshot on his page at 8.23 pm on April 25. He got the screenshots as WhatsApp messages from various sources. Police took the statements of these four CPM supporters as "witnesses" of the case. Khasim said the police should have made Ribesh an accused because he refused to reveal the source of the screenshot.
Khasim's counsel in the High Court Adv Mohammed Shah, who is also the state general secretary of IUML, said the police should have registered an FIR as soon as it was convinced an offence was committed under Section 153 A of the IPC. "By not doing so, it violated the 2022 Supreme Court judgment in the Aswini Kumar Upadhyaya vs Union of India case," he said.
But the police told the High Court that the investigation conducted so far in Crime No. 410 and Crime No. 411 revealed that the two cases are "leading to the same direction and that the accused persons in both the cases are one and the same".
Police blame Facebook
The Vadakara Police have blamed Facebook for the delay in not identifying the creator of the screenshot. It had named Facebook Nodal Officer in India Aswin Madhusoodanan as an accused for not removing the communal screenshot from the Facebook pages.
Now, the police have submitted a report to the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court in Vadakara to issue a summons to Madhusoodanan, and direct him to produce before the court the details of the "originator of the communal post on Facebook/ WhatsApp".
Police have not yet gotten the report.
