In his deposition before a parliamentary panel Wednesday, Facebook India head Ajit Mohan said there was no reason for Facebook to to act against the Bajrang Dal.
Mohan told the panel members that no material posted by the Bajrang Dal violated any social media policies as found by Facebook fact-checking team.
In the same hearing Congress MP Karti Chidambaram cited a Wall Street Journal report which said that the social media giant had refrained from taking action against the right wing group because "cracking down... might endanger both the company's business prospects and its staff in India”.
The WSJ article referred to a video with 2.5 lakh views in which the Bajrang Dal accepted responsibility for an attack on a church outside Delhi in June.
In August, two other publications, The Journal and TIME had made casted similar apprehensions on Facebook.
"Besides risking infuriating India's ruling Hindu nationalist politicians, banning Bajrang Dal might precipitate physical attacks against Facebook...," The Jounral report said, quoting an internal report.
Delhi Assembly's Peace Committee had also asked Mohan to appear in regards to these reports but terming it a "brazen violation of my fundamental rights,” he refused to adhere to the summons.
Facebook has insisted it applied hate speech rules uniformly, and without consideration to political parties, but has also admitted it needs to do better to address the issue.
