The benefits of social media are undeniable, but for 50-year-old Salim PK it's been a nightmare.

Salim is a Head Constable with the Delhi Police, and his life was torn apart by a misleading video of him which went viral on YouTube.

Salim figures in the video ‘Drunk Delhi Police man on Delhi metro - Funny’ which went viral in India and abroad, scooping nearly two lakh hits a day. The footage made front page news in the dailies and triggered a primetime TV debate on the safety of metro commuters. Now the Constable has knocked at the doors of the Supreme Court, saying he has endured the “worst kind of defamation one can suffer through social media”.

The officer, posted at the Civil Lines police station, approached the Supreme Court after getting a clean chit from the then Police Commissioner B S Bassi. His suspension was withdrawn and he was reinstated in the force on November 5, 2015, within two months of the clip going viral.

A police enquiry and verification of his medical records found that Salim’s repeated claims that he was not drunk on board the metro on August 19, 2015 were true.

His disorientated and dizzy state was the result of acute health problems and partial paralysis of his body.

Police department says sorry

An apologetic Police department declared his suspension period as “spent on duty”. Besides seeking compensation for the irresponsible uploading and media coverage which had “irreparably maligned his image in the eyes of the public”, Salim has urged the Centre to take steps to remove the video and identify measures to prevent such abuse of social media in the future.

Salim wants the Delhi government, Police Commissioner, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, and the Press Council of India to take steps so that he can “regain his lost dignity by publishing the correct factual position in some prominent places, print and electronic media”.

Salim (now in his native state Kerala on three months' medical leave), suffers from a speech disorder, and was not available for comment. His wife is receiving treatment for a stroke she suffered after her husband’s unfortunate humiliation. And his 87-year-old father is bedridden with paralysis.

Mail Today could only speak to Salim's lawyer, Wills Mathews.

“When the video went viral and Salim was suspended, it made front page news. When he was taken back, not a single newspaper or TV channel carried it. In the eyes of the general public, the petitioner was drunk in the metro and he is still under suspension,” says Mathews.

VIDEO: The footage that got Salim wrongly suspended...

Seeking the court’s intervention, Mathews said in the petition: “Otherwise the only option for the petitioner was to live and suffer in silence as it is humanly impossible for him to locate the source of the video, or to take legal action against the thousands of print, visual and social media, particularly when the petitioner himself is half paralysed, with serious economic, health, emotional, and physical disabilities, who has to take care of his wife who had a serious heart attack after this incident along with the aged father of the petitioner who is paralysed for the last more than 5 years”.

Facts

Salim has always been a dedicated police officer. He was once part of the special security team of former Home Minister P Chidambaram and ex-Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit. But he suffered a major stroke three years ago.

A blockage in his brain caused a brain haemorrhage that left him with a paralysed left side, a contorted face, memory loss, body weakness, and difficulty communicating normally.

He was repeatedly hospitalised and suffered occasional seizures. He was on medication with regular medical check-ups.

Salim was shifted to a desk job from security duty following his illness. On the evening of August 19, 2015, Salim felt sick at work. But he decided to stay on till duty ended at 9.30pm. He had put in long hours and had not taken his medicines the previous day.

After boarding the metro, Salim suffered a fresh black-out and felt so dizzy that he had difficulty in even locating the doors of the train. He began to swing from side to side inside the coach, and when it came to a halt at the Azadpur station, he lost his balance and came crashing down on the floor.

Illness, not alcohol: Stills from the video show Salim stumbling and falling to the floor, before commuters hurry to help him. The officer suffered a major stroke three years ago, and the after-effects have included dizziness and paralysis in one side of his body.

Little did Salim know that someone would make a video and that he would soon make national and international headlines as the drunk cop who boarded the metro.

The entire episode was uploaded on YouTube. As media pressure mounted, police commissioner B S Bassi suspended Salim and sought an explanation for his “conduct”.

Silent suffering

While his close family members knew the truth, Salim became a subject of ridicule among his colleagues and neighbours. What made it worse for Salim’s family was the barrage of phone calls and embarrassing queries from relatives and friends in Delhi and from his home town in Kerala.

Salim’s wife went into depression and suffered a heart attack within one month of the video going viral.

“Right to live with dignity and reputation is a fundamental right and a part of Article 21 of the constitution of India. The right to life includes the right to live with human dignity. If a man is to preserve his dignity, he has to live with honour and reputation. In the present case, the petitioner lost his dignity due to the uploading of the video of the petitioner with wrong and misleading titles,” said Mathews.

How social media fuels false rumours

By Mail Today Bureau in New Delhi

Social media acted as a catalyst in helping thousands gather at India Gate in the Capital to seek justice for the December 16 gang-rape victim. However, it has also fuelled rumours, creating fears of a law and order problem as observed during the Muzaffarnagar riots, the Jat quota stir, and the Dadri lynching.

The internet can be a treasure chest of amazing finds, but not every piece of information you find there is true.

Sarabjeet Singh was falsely accused of harassing a girl, and his picture went viral on Facebook

According to cyber experts, the majority of internet users are not aware about cyber crimes and how social media websites can be misused to spread malicious content. Many do not know the authenticity of the content and share it for fun, but this often leads to rumour-mongering and may even tarnish someone’s image.

A leading English news channel was recently asked by The News Broadcasting Standards Authority (NBSA) to issue an apology and pay a fine over its reporting on the Jasleen Kaur case.

In the case, a woman named Jasleen Kaur had shared a man’s photo on Facebook, accusing him of verbally harassing her at a road crossing in Delhi. The post, accusing one Sarabjit Singh, received over one lakh shares on social media.

The photograph shared by Kaur was broadcast by several news channels, and following the media coverage, Delhi Police had arrested Singh within a day on charges of sexual harassment.

Singh and his family denied the allegations, and after a few days a man claiming to be an eyewitness in the case said Jasleen Kaur had cooked up the story and falsely accused the man.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and celebrities, including Sonakshi Sinha, had backed Jasleen.

Similarly, social media played a major role when Jawaharlal Nehru University was caught in the eye of the sedition row. It was through social media that doctored videos - featuring allegedly anti-national sloganeering at a controversial event held on campus on February 9 - were widely shared.

Out of the seven video clips, two were found to be tampered with, as observed by the Hyderabad-based Truth Labs, which had received the clips from Delhi government. The videos were widely circulated on social media websites, including Facebook and WhatsApp.

“A little fun can sometimes cause a serious law and order problem. Recently, someone posted on Facebook that polio drop vaccine is contaminated, which caused major problems for the district administration. Such cases are happening regularly. We have found that communal issues can create havoc, causing major security issue,” Ishaan Sinha, a cyber crime expert, said.