The Vadodara Police on Sunday evening arrested a 26-year-old man named as Shubham Mishra for issuing rape threats to stand-up comedian Agrima Joshua, over her comments on the statue of Chhattrapati Shivaji Maharaj in Mumbai.
Shubham Mishra had posted a video on Saturday on his Instagram account, in which he hurled abuses at Joshua and threatened to rape her. But soon after some public backlash he took down the video and apologised for the vile comments and threats.
Mishra’s arrest came after National Commission for Women Chairperson Rekha Sharma wrote a letter to Gujarat Director General of Police Shivanand Jha about the video on Saturday evening. “The NCW is committed to creating safe online space for women and ensuring cyber security to women and is perturbed by the rise in use of cyberspace to instigate crime against women,” she said in the letter.
The commission also tweeted that Mishra had been arrested, and hoped this would serve as a lesson for people who dare to threaten women online.
The video which is a year old one-year-old has been widely shared on social media, in which Joshua jokes about the Maharashtra government’s Shivaji statue project in the Arabian Sea. She refers to what was said about the statue on the knowledge-sharing website Quora. “This Shivaji statue is an amazing masterstroke by Prime Minister Modi Ji,” Joshua says. “It will have solar cells which will power all of Maharashtra. It will also have GPS tracker.”
The video was part of a sketch Joshua had performed in April 2019 at a cafe in Khar West suburb of Mumbai. Maharashtra Navnirman Sena activists allegedly stromed into the cafe early on Saturday and damaged the stage and furniture in one of its performance rooms.
Joshua apologised for the video on Saturday. However, Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh said he had directed the police to take legal action against her.
