Four arrested for making threat calls to fellow YouTuber in UP’s Basti

One of the accused falsely claimed to be associated with jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, the police said, adding that they wanted to intimidate the other You Tuber into refraining from posting anything.

The dispute reportedly arose from competition among the YouTubers to outperform one another. An inquiry revealed the accused YouTubers reportedly provoked their followers, who then made the threat calls. The threat was aimed to intimidate the complainant and prevent him from posting content against them, the officials said.

“The accused were produced in a Basti court which sent them to judicial custody. The threat calls were made using six phone numbers over a period of time. An investigation is going on,” said Kotwali police station incharge Rana Devendra Pratap Singh.

According to the police, Astha Dubey, who works as a receptionist and dance teacher at a dance school run by the YouTuber, Suraj Jaiswal ( 27), received a call on a phone at the insttute’s reception on November 10, alleging that the caller verbally abused her and issued death threats. The caller, she said, claimed to be an associate of Lawrence Bishnoi while threatening that Jaiswal should shut down his YouTube channel.

Subsequently, several more threat calls were made at the same number used by Astha Dubey, it was alleged.

An FIR was filed under Sections 352 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) and 351 (criminal intimidation) of the BNS at the Kotwali police station on her complaint.

The police investigation revealed that two calls were allegedly made from phone numbers registered in the names of Bablu Dubey and Shobhit Mishra. Santosh Patel was identified as a neighbor of Shobhit Mishra.

The probe also uncovered an ongoing rivalry between Jaiswal and the accused. According to the police, Patel and Rohit had been posting offensive videos and defamatory content targeting Jaiswal for several months.

In response, Jaiswal had also been posting content against them. All three are prominent YouTubers in Basti, with significant followings, and were competing to outdo each other. These activities were part of their attempts to tarnish each other’s reputations.