UP Police books Google’s Sundar Pichai, others over ‘defamatory’ video; removes names from FIR later

Varanasi: Police in Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi had booked Google CEO Sundar Pichai and 17 others last week over a video that allegedly defamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi but later removed the tech giant officials’ names from the FIR, police officials said on Friday. The names of Pichai and three other Google top officials were removed after they were found “not involved” in the case, a police official privy to the probe told over the phone.

The FIR was lodged following a complaint by a local resident who claimed that he got over 8,500 threat calls on his mobile phone after he objected to the video that he first came across in a WhatsApp group and later on YouTube, where it has over five lakh views, the officials said.