In a weird development, the police department of the BJP ruling Uttar Pradesh has filed an FIR against Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai and 17 others over a video that surfaced on Youtube which the complainant claimed that the video had defamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Joining Sundar Pichai in the FIR are three Google India Officials including Sanjay Kumar Gupta. 

According to reports, the FIR was lodged at Bhelpur police station on February 6. The complainant, who was a local resident, claimed that he got over 8,500 threat calls on his mobile phone after he objected to the video. 

He said that he first saw the video in a WhatsApp group and on Youtube and it has garnered over five lakh views. Following the complaint, the police had filed an FIR, for the first time, against Sundar Pichai and other officials of the search engine giant. 

Along with the officials from Google, the FIR has also named Ghazipur based musicians who allegedly made the video. Bhelpur Police station has filed an FIR under sections 504 - intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace, 506 - criminal intimidation, 500 -defamation, and 120B - party to a criminal conspiracy of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). 

Along with the IPC sections, the FIR carried the charges under section 67 of the Information Technology Act for publishing or transmitting obscene material. The officials had revealed the development on Friday and they also said that the Varanasi police later removed the names of Sundar Pichai and other Google officials from the FIR. The Varanasi police said that they had removed the names after they found that the Google bigshots were not involved in the case. 

Speaking to the PTI, the police official said, "The names of Google officials were removed from the FIR the same day as it turned out that they were not involved in the case. Investigation on other points is underway".