Post on Twitter: Activist booked for asking Muslims to ‘boycott pro-CAA’ professionals

The notice, dated December 25, states that Goplani’s post “provokes enmity between communities” as it names specific persons from Vadodara’s medical community. It also directed Goplani to appear before the police and explain his action.

The notice states, “A tweet from your account, in which you have named doctors from Vadodara and alleged that the doctors have made anti-Muslim comments in public and supported the CAA, stands to create a discord between communities and provoke a breach of peace between the communities. It has also created a sense of fear among the doctor’s community in the city as you have directly called upon the Muslim community to boycott the doctors, thereby giving a message of hatred and break the unity of the society. You are therefore called in to explain your action.”

In his post, Gopalani had named 14 doctors and identified them by their specialisation and said, “The following doctors speak against Indian Muslims in various forums and are against the Constitution of India, My India. They comment against Muslims and openly support the CAA NRC. I openly urge the Muslim community to boycott doctors of such communal mindset.”

The list includes five physicians from Vadodara, a radiologist, a pulmonologist, paediatrician and a plastic surgeon as well as three doctors from Borsad where Gopalani’s educational institution, Hanifa School, is located.

A senior police officer said on condition of anonymity, “The action has been taken as a preventive measure to ensure that no one is personally targeted in the city due to social media messages. This post specifically names doctors and, therefore, in such a sensitive case we cannot ignore the threat perception to these individual doctors, who may have had an opinion of their own on an issue. Our cyber cell is monitoring all social media accounts in the most fair manner.”

Gopalani, who is currently out of Vadodara told this newspaper that he will comply with the police notice and appear before the cyber police on Friday to explain his stand on the issue.