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| Rajnath Singh probably fell for the fake Hafeez Saeed account as Delhi police also took it as real on Saturday.| (video below) ANI PIC |
February 14, 2016, NewsCrunch
A fake Twitter account, Hafeez Saeed JUD, went out of existence minutes after Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh said it had supported the "anti-national" incident at JNU.
Addressing media on Sunday afternoon, Rajnath Singh said LET chief Hafiz Saeed had tweeted supporting the incident at JNU in which a few students had shouted anti-India slogans.
@hafeezsaeedJUD was deleted minutes after he made the statement.
It had tweeted on February 10 calling upon "Pakistani brothers" to trend #SupprotJNU; it had also described JNUites as pro-Pakistani.
The tweet was being cited by many as evidence of JNU's complicity with Pak terrorists. It suddenly dropped into national limelight when the country's Home Minister decided to invoke it.
Rajnath Singh probably fell for the fake account as Delhi police also took it as real on Saturday.
It retweeted an alert, which quoted Hafiz fake tweet, and urged the student community not to get carried away by the anti-national rhetoric. Abatement to anti-national activity was offense, it cautioned.
The tweet was also tagged to police accounts of Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore. Hyderabad and Telangana.
If Rajnath Singh and Delhi Police had paid a little attention they could have probably realised that it was a fake.
Started in 2014 July, @hafeezsaeedJUD barely had 2,000 plus users. As Twitter Tunnel, which archives old tweets shows, the account would sometimes send parody tweets and sometimes even use racist language.
It had also earlier congratulated Arvind Kejriwal for calling Modi a psychopath and a coward.
The original Hafiz Saeed account was suspended by Twitter in December 2010 for its persistent anti-India rhetoric.
Video: Rajnath Singh says LET chief Hafiz Saeed tweeted supporting JNU incident
WATCH: 'Unfortunate that JNU incident has been supported by LeT Chief Hafiz Saeed', says HM Rajnath Singhhttps://t.co/Djplbeakyo— ANI (@ANI_news) February 14, 2016
Delhi Police tweeted an alert against fake Hafiz Saeed tweet
ALERT!@MumbaiPolice@KolkataPolice@hydcitypolice@CPBlr@CPMumbaiPolice@TelanganaDGP@BlrCityPolice@ANI_newspic.twitter.com/DIFWKrGZME— Delhi Police (@DelhiPolice) February 12, 2016