"TIME understands that Shivnath Thukral, WhatsApp’s public policy director, has been asked to take over Das’s duties on an interim basis..."<p>"In August, TIME reported that Thukral, one of Das’s key lieutenants at the time, had walked out of a meeting in 2019 when an activist had raised concerns about a post by a BJP state lawmaker who suggested Muslims were rapists. The post remained online for more than a year after the meeting, until TIME contacted Facebook to ask about it. (Facebook told TIME the post had been flagged as hate speech internally at the time, but did not explain why they had failed to remove it.)<p>Thukral also worked on behalf of the BJP during the party’s 2014 election campaign. "