Social media influencer sent to five-day police custody over racial abuse video

• A Delhi court has granted police five days’ custody of influencer Amir Shokeen in a case involving alleged racial harassment of a man from Tripura.

• Investigators said they needed to recover a mobile phone and travel to Ahmedabad as part of the inquiry.

• Shokeen has apologised but claimed the video was scripted and featured someone he knew.

A Delhi court on Saturday remanded social media influencer Amir Shokeen to five days’ police custody in connection with a video allegedly showing the racial harassment and humiliation of a man from Tripura.

Shokeen was produced before the Tis Hazari Court following the expiry of the one-day judicial custody ordered on Friday. Delhi Police arrested him in Karol Bagh on Thursday after the video circulated online and prompted widespread criticism.

Seeking his custody, investigators told the court that a mobile phone remained to be recovered and that they needed to travel to Ahmedabad. The defence argued that the precise location relevant to the proposed recovery had not been identified beyond being somewhere in the city.

After hearing both sides, the court allowed police to question Shokeen in custody for five days.

The case centres on an exchange that police said was filmed about a month ago. Its circulation has brought attention to the alleged targeting of a person from north-eastern India and the responsibility of online creators for content presented as entertainment.

Shokeen apologised after the backlash but disputed the characterisation of the encounter. In a Facebook post, he claimed the video was scripted and that he knew the man featured alongside him.

According to Shokeen’s account, the man had previously worked at a friend’s café in Ahmedabad. He described the interaction as a humorous exchange in which both participants were joking and said he had not intended to insult anyone.

That explanation remains his account of the incident. The police investigation concerns the alleged racial harassment depicted in the footage, and the court’s custody order does not amount to a finding of guilt.

Officials also said Shokeen had previously faced other criminal cases. Further details about their status were not provided in the information available.

With IANS inputs