Dargah of Ajmer Sharif goes to court over YouTube video

Chennai: The Dargah of Ajmer Sharif has filed a petition in the Rajasthan High Court and has questioned YouTube's "laxity" in taking down a video that it described as being intended to outrage the religious feelings of followers of Khawaja Gharib Nawaz by using "highly objectionable, derogatory, defamatory and insulting remarks."

In the petition, filed on Thursday, the dargah also said the police have not yet filed an FIR despite the dargah filing a written complaint, it said.

This is the first time that a Sufi sect has gone to court against a social media company for alleged inaction to remove an allegedly inflammatory video.


A representative of the dargah told ET that several other videos were also floating around on YouTube that painted the Sufis at large as being "barbaric" and amounted to hate speech.

The Dargah said this petition is a "precursor" and that its upcoming petitions will take on big tech platforms over hate speech.

In spite of making a complaint, YouTube has still not taken down the objectionable content, the dargah, which is the representative body of the Khadim community, said in the petition, referring to a video uploaded on a news portal's YouTube channel on December 2. ET has seen the petition.