The Uttar Pradesh Police found themselves in an embarrassing situation on Saturday after one of its official Twitter handles posted several ‘rolling with laughter’ emojis to a social media user’s abuse for someone, who had praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Left red-faced by the action of one of its personnel, the Bahraich Police immediately deleted the controversial tweet and suspended the concerned official.
It all started with one user, Gagan Sahu, thanking PM Modi and the UP chief minister for rolling out a free vaccination programme in the state. He wrote, “I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for starting the free vaccination programme. We countrymen are benefiting from this. We also took advantage of this programme and waited for our turn to get the first dose of the vaccination.”
Reacting to Sahu’s tweet, user Manoj Kumar shared an expletive-laden emoji, which loosely translated in English to ‘Get lost you motherf**ker.” This episode wouldn’t have been noticed by anyone given their considerably low number of followers. But what made their exchange viral was the response from the verified Twitter handle of the Bahraich Police, which posted three ‘rolling with laughter’ emojis in response to Kumar’s expletive-laden meme. (Please below).
The Bahraich Police later issued a statement stating that the concerned cop had been suspended and disciplinary action initiated against him. The statement read, “The tweet has been deleted as soon as it was brought to our attention. The person handling the Twitter handle at that time told us during the investigation that his child took the phone to commit this act. The concerned person has been suspended with immediate effect for dereliction of duty and indiscipline.”
The Bahraich Police also said that it had issued directives to its force for exercising more care in the future.