Wikipedia has been sent a notice by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) after cricketer Arshdeep Singh's Wikipedia page was vandalised, a senior government official told Moneycontrol.
Arshdeep Singh, who missed a catch during the India-Pakistan cricket match on September 4, was subjected to severe criticism and trolling. Key details in his Wikipedia page, was changed to term him as 'Khalistani'.
"We are taking this seriously. There are indications that there may have been Pakistani involvement and this could have had implications on our national security and harmony," a government official said.
Wikimedia Foundation, the US-based non-profit organisation that operates Wikipedia, told Moneycontrol, that Arshdeep Kaur's page has been semi-protected to prevent its further vandalism.
The foundation further confirmed that the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology got in touch with them regarding the page of Singh, where details related to him were maliciously edited to describe him as a "Khalistani".
Minister of State in the IT ministry, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, took to Twitter to voice his concern around this development.
"No intermediary operating in India can permit this type of misinformation n deliberate efforts to incitement n #userharm - violates our govts expectation of Safe & Trusted Internet," he tweeted.
This comes at a time when the IT Ministry is finalising the amendments to the Information Technology Rules 2021. One of the reason for bringing in the amendments was that intermediaries were not addressing grievances “satisfactorily and/or fairly”.
Additionally, IT ministry had also said that a number of intermediaries have acted in violation of Constitutional rights of Indian citizens”.
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