New Delhi: Karnataka cadre IAS officer Mohammad Mohsin, who was suspended last year by the Election Commission for checking PM Narendra Modi’s helicopter, has now been issued a show cause notice by the Karnataka government for a tweet on the Tablighi Jamaat members.
According to official sources in Karnataka, the state government issued a show cause notice to the 1996-batch officer for a tweet on 27 April, which said “More than 300 Tablighi heroes are donating their plasma to serve the country in New Delhi only. What about it? Godi Media? They will not show you the works of humanity done by these heroes.”
The tweet has since been deleted.
An official told ThePrint that Mohsin, posted as a secretary in the Backward Classes Welfare Department, has been given five days to respond to the notice.
Mohsin told ThePrint he had received the notice and he will give his reply “shortly”.
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Not the first time the IAS officer has landed in trouble
This is, however, not the first time the IAS officer has landed in trouble with a BJP-led government.
Last year, during the Lok Sabha elections, the Election Commission had barred Mohsin from election duties for checking Modi’s helicopter in Odisha while the PM was campaigning. He was deployed in Odisha as a general observer and suspended for checking Modi’s helicopter in Odisha’s Sambalpur in ‘violation’ of norms for dealing with SPG protectees.
While Mohsin may have deleted this tweet for which he has landed in trouble with the state government, he frequently tweets and retweets articles and views critical of the government, especially at the Centre.
On Monday, for example, Mohsin retweeted a tweet that criticised the Centre’s decision to revoke the permission granted to e-Commerce companies to commence business activities. “In the midst of a full blown health crisis, should there be any room for erratic decision making guided by extraneous factors?” the tweet by a journalist said.
On the same day Mohsin retweeted another tweet, in which a Twitter user questioned why the Madhya Pradesh chief minister insisted on implementing the Bhilwara model to contain the spread of Covid-19 in the state, and not the “Gujarat model”.
शिवराज जी,
राजस्थान का भीलभाड़ा मॉडल क्यों ?
गुजरात मॉडल क्यों नहीं..? https://t.co/Ww0JXwaTpB— Srinivas B V (@srinivasiyc) April 27, 2020
Last week, Mohsin had retweeted an article on members of the Tablighi Jamaat donating blood plasma to severely ill patients in Delhi by a reporter, who tweeted “Noble cause by #TableeghiJamaat Of 1068 #COVID19 positive #Tablighis in Delhi Hospitals, around 300 have recovered. And ALL of them have agreed to donate blood plasma to the same people they are accused of infecting.”
Even in 2019, ThePrint had reported how if his Twitter handle is anything to go by, the officer appears to be a vocal critic of the Modi government.
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This report has been updated to include a comment from Mohammad Mohsin.