On 27th January a twitter user by the name of Shivansh Sirji tweeted to Noida Police, the UP Police and its DG about accidents happening on a patch of a road and the lack of action of the local police to prevent it. He reportedly saw a motorbike skidding on a patch near Barola Crossing while he was returning home from Noida Phase 2.
https://twitter.com/shivansh_sh/status/825002594850451456
In line with the efficiency seen on Social media these days he soon received a reply from UP police asking for more information:
He also received a reply from the Noida Police twitter account:
https://twitter.com/noidapolice/status/825012345789415424
At this moment one might believe that after showing great efficiency on Twitter the police might either have resolved the complaint or maybe done nothing in this regard but as it turns out they had other plans.
According to this report, a Sub Inspector by the name of Vijender Bhadana reached the spot and started beating Shivansh. To make matters worse he was taken to the Sector 49 police station where he was threatened that he would be implicated in an Arms Act case and then forcibly made to write a letter clarifying that his Tweet was fake, which was also shared on the Noida Police twitter account:
https://twitter.com/noidapolice/status/825039155088470016
As reported, Shivansh somehow managed to save himself after getting in touch with the UP Police PRO, Atul Srivastav who helped him out. He was later contacted by the Senior Superintendent of Police, Gautam Budh Nagar, Dharmender Yadav, and ordered a probe into the matter.
It makes one wonder whether the Police officers became enraged because he called their inaction shameful or they were irked by the fact that someone had dared to question them? Plus one may be perplexed by the fact that such a stifling of freedom of expression has not been made an outrage point by the media which is not surprising as now a days one of the prominent publications of India is busy cheer-leading the supposed achievements of the current UP government.
This incident becomes so much more unfortunate when one realizes that on one hand ministers like Sushma Swaraj and Suresh Prabhu have pioneered the use of social media in order to help the people in need and on the other some institutions are using social media hound and trample upon normal citizens.