Mau Police in Uttar Pradesh has confirmed on Twitter that one Shafique Ahmad who wrote an abusive tweet to Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj has been arrested. On 28th May 2018, one Shafique Ahmad tweeted an extremely derogatory and abusive tweet to Swaraj.



Vigilant twitterati reached out to Mau Police and Uttar Pradesh Police to take action against the abuser. Mau Police swung into action and informed that the said person has been arrested under various sections of the IT Act.



This action by the police is encouraging as usually such abuses go unpunished because many times it does not violate the service terms of the social media platform, which makes it difficult for the law authorities to get to the bottom of things. This step by the police shall hopefully act as a deterrent to those who think they could say absolute rubbish and get away with it.

Recently, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj faced a lot of abuse over the Lucknow passport office incident where an ‘interfaith’ couple had accused a passport officer of indulging in moral policing and harassment. Lucknow office, on getting a tweet from Sadia Anas alias Tanvi Seth on Twitter, swung into action, and without verification issued passport in less than 24 hours.

Eventually, the police found out that Sadia does not live at the address she has put up in her passport application form. Since this is not the first time Swaraj and her office have issued passports to people for trivial reasons while many Indians stranded abroad don’t get an audience with them, many on Twitter were critical of the enthusiasm of Lucknow office. Unfortunately, under the cloak of anonymity, some of these tweets ranged from abuses to threats. Irrespective of gender, no one should be subjected to any sort of abuse or threat.

However, Swaraj, who was not in India when the episode took place, on her return focused on the abuses instead of the lapse of judgement in her office. She painted even many of her supporters, who were only critical of her office, as ‘trolls’.