Author Shobhaa De found some criticism floating her way on Twitter on Tuesday after she uploaded an inaccurate picture of an overweight uniformed cop, saying ‘Heavy police bandobast in Mumbai today’ on the day of civil polls.
Although her tweet initially tickled some funny bones, the post was later spotted by the Mumbai Police who clearly pointed out that the picture of the overweight cop was not one of their own and asked the columnist to be more ‘careful’ in future.
In a fitting reply, the Mumbai Police said: “We love puns too Ms De but this one is totally imisplaced. Uniform/official not ours. We expect better from responsible citizens like you.”
Some people have said that the picture used by De is an old one and it has been used to malign the image of the cops.
Mumbai police, on the other hand, deserve credit as civic polls that took place on Tuesday went peacefully and there were no incidents of nuisance reported.
Slamming her for posting the image of the fat cop, a twitterati @RajeshM said, “@DeShobhaa converted herself into a crone, spewing venom.”
@Sheshakumar said “the picture had been circulating on the social media since last eight to ten years.”
Some netizens said the policeman De referred to belonged to the Madhya Pradesh Police and not the Maharashtra Police.
Meanwhile, in an attempt to make peace, De posted a fresh tweet in morning: “Mumbai/ Maharashtra Police Pranaam. No offence intended. M.P. Police, Consult a dietitian, if its an asli, undoctored image doing the round.”
It has to be noted that Mumbai recorded a voter turnout of 55 per cent on Tuesday, a large increase from 2012. Both the Shiv Sena and BJP are locked in an edge-to-edge contest in this year’s polls to stake claim to the richest corporation in India. The counting of the votes will take place Thursday.
