Government asks Twitter to take down Manipur video of women being paraded naked

Amidst the ongoing turmoil in Manipur, a shocking video has surfaced on Twitter where two women were forcefully stripped and paraded naked by a mob. The government has now asked Twitter, and other social media platforms to take down that video as the matter is under investigation, ANI reported. This is not the first time the Indian government has reportedly asked Twitter to remove content from its platform.

The Manipur video sparked outrage and condemnation on social media platforms and there were calls for decisive action to be taken against the wrongdoers. Bollywood actors like Akshay Kumar, Richa Chadha, Urmila Matondkar, Vir Das and Renuka Sahane have reacted too and expressed their concerns about the incident in the northeastern state. The state has been racked with clashes between two ethnic groups recently.

Akshay Kumar wrote on Twitter, “Shaken, disgusted to see the video of violence against women in Manipur. I hope the culprits get such a harsh punishment that no one ever thinks of doing a horrifying thing like this again.”

The BJP-ruled state’s public has been asking sports personalities and actors to raise their voices against the turmoil in the state, and this recent incident has drawn a reaction from some of them.

Actress Renuka Sahane wrote on Twitter, “Is there no one to stop the atrocities in Manipur? If you are not shaken to the core by that disturbing video of two women, is it even right to call oneself human, let alone Bharatiya or Indian!”

Twitter under scanner

This is not the first time the Center has asked Twitter and other social media platforms to remove sensitive content. In June, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey claimed that the Indian government threatened to shut down the microblogging platform and raid the houses of its employees if it did not remove several accounts and tweets linked with 2020’s farmer protests.

In a befitting reply, Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said in a tweet, “No one went to jail nor was Twitter ‘shut down’. Dorsey’s Twitter regime had a problem accepting the sovereignty of Indian law,” and the minister said that Dorsey’s claims were an “outright lie”.