Indian National Congress’ has claimed that its official Twitter account was locked out after the party violated POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offence) Act by revealing the identity of a rape victim. The party had been tweeting the contentious image in solidarity with Rahul Gandhi whose Twitter account, too, was locked out for violating the law of the land.
Congress says Twitter has blocked its account for violation of rules
— ANI (@ANI) August 12, 2021
Twitter acting under govt pressure. It has already blocked 5000 accounts of our leaders&workers across India. They need to understand we can't be pressurised by Twitter or govt:Rohan Gupta,Social Media Head,AICC pic.twitter.com/pP8fgqwroO
While Congress is crying foul that the accounts are locked under government pressure, the are conveniently forgetting that they were in violation of POCSO Act which prohibits revealing identity of the minor rape victim.
The last tweet from Congress’ official account was about 12 hours back. Other than the party’s official account, accounts of other party leaders like AICC general secretary and former union minister Ajay Maken, party general secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala, party MP Manickam Tagore, Mahila Congress president Sushmita Dev, Assam in-charge and former Union minister Jitendra Singh Alwar were also locked out.
Last Friday, the social media platform had taken down Rahul Gandhi’s Tweet that revealed the identity of the relatives of a rape and murder victim in Delhi after the NCPCR took cognizance of the matter.
Shortly after sharing the picture, Gandhi’s account was temporarily locked, following which Twitter issued a statement saying that the action was taken as per the information shared by the National Commission of Women (NCW) according to the guidelines under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. Sources in the Congress IT cell tell OpIndia that the party wants Twitter to either come out and say that they ‘locked out’ Rahul Gandhi’s account under pressure from the Government of India or to at least issue a regret note for doing so.
However, Congress leaders are now crying foul despite being in violation of the rule of the land.
