In the third instance of its kind in six weeks, the official handle of a government agency has been used to tweet a hate message, only to be disowned by the minister in charge of the relevant minister in the NDA government at the Centre.
In the latest such case reported in The Indian Express, the official handle of Digital India, a flagship government initiative for a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy, on Thursday tweeted a poem promoting the killing of Kashmiris by the army. The tweet, which was soon deleted, included the screenshot of a poem posted on Facebook that it labelled “Heights of #Patriotism..!!!”
When contacted, Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told the national daily he “immediately sought a report” when the tweet was brought to his notice. The person who tweeted the poem has been suspended, he added.
Calling the act “mischievous”, Prasad said, “The contents of the tweet don’t represent the views of the IT ministry, Digital India or the government of India. I regret the tweet.”
Managed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Digital India has more than 5.34 lakh followers on Twitter.
The poem, written to the lyrics of a popular Bollywood song, asked the army not to stop firing on people till they come to the city square and sing the national anthem. It read, “Issued in public interest; all who love their lives; should quietly come to the city square; sing the national anthem; and not throw any tantrums here.”
One of the passages in the poem said, “The bullets have just started, don’t say later you didn’t get a warning, you will have to say Vande Mantaram every morning.” Another read “Thrash them all you want, army; break their bones; If Mehbooba calls the police; Modi will handle it.”
A week ago, All India Radio’s official handle had tweeted about Rahul Gandhi, asking, “How he became daring again to defame #RSS?”
The tweet, asking him to “stick to comments”, was deleted on the direction of the director general of news at AIR, Sitanshu Kar.
In late July, the Twitter account for Startup India, another key government initiative, retweeted two tweets targeting journalists and Pakistan. The account retracted the retweets later, with Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman blaming it on an external agency that was hired to tweet for the project.
The full report in The Indian Express may be read here.