Filmmaker Avinash Das arrested, police say he has a history of putting up fake posts

The Ahmedabad Police’s Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) had registered an FIR against Das on May 13 for allegedly sharing the photo of Shah that was reportedly taken during a public event in Ranchi in 2017.

According to the FIR, Das shared “a five-year-old photo of Amit Shah on May 8, 2022, to allegedly mislead people and defame the reputation of Shah”. Singhal was arrested in Jharkhand this May by the Enforcement Directorate in a case of money laundering.

Das was also booked in the same FIR on charges of insulting the national flag by allegedly sharing a “morphed picture of a woman wearing a Tricolour” on Facebook.

“It is the duty of every Indian citizen to respect our national flag. Our social media team was on the watch when we got to know about filmmaker Avinash Das who posted an indecent display of our national flag on social media, thereby insulting it,” DCP Mandlik said.

“He also posted a picture of the Union Home Minister to harm his reputation. An FIR was filed in this regard at the DCB police station. After many attempts, Das was detained in Mumbai on Tuesday afternoon and brought to Ahmedabad. He was formally arrested at 4 am Wednesday and legal procedure is going on. We are seeking his remand for seven days,” Mandlik said.

A sessions court in Ahmedabad granted police custody of Das till 3 pm on Thursday. Das’s lawyer said he would file a bail plea before the magistrate on Thursday evening. The lawyer, however, did not respond to subsequent queries on the fresh allegations levelled by the police.

Das had earlier approached the Bombay High Court, the sessions court in Ahmedabad, Gujarat High Court and the Supreme Court to seek anticipatory bail. However, the courts rejected his petitions while his plea was pending in the Supreme Court.

Das had moved the Gujarat High Court with the offer of issuing an unconditional apology for the social media posts, but the court rejected it and ruled that it is “prima facie clear that the act (of allegedly insulting the national flag)” was “deliberate and not unintentional”.

When asked about the apology offer, Mandlik said, “Apology is not accepted in legal matters and arrest has been done in furtherance of legal action. We will seek remand and question him regarding his previous posts as well.”

Das hails from Darbhanga in Bihar and is the director of the critically acclaimed movie ‘Anaarkali of Aarah’, the Netflix series ‘She’ and the Zee5 film ‘Raat Baaki Hai’.