Thackeray Facebook fallout: #ArrestIdeas tops Twitter India

The ground situation may have remained calm after Bal Thackeray’s death and funeral, but there is turmoil across cyberspace. As the city crawled out of a 36 hour ‘voluntary’ lockdown, it soon transpired that two girls had been arrested and sentenced to 14 days judicial custody for respectively ‘posting’ and ’liking’ a status update questioning the shut down of shops and businesses over Thackeray’s death. [caption id=“attachment_528913” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Getty[/caption] The news immediately gained traction on social media and Twitter, and was picked up by several media mainstream organisations, prompting reactions from personalities like Telecommunications Minister Kapil Sibal who said he was ‘deeply disturbed’ by the arrests, and Press Council of India Chairman Justice Katju who said that all the policemen involved in the arrest should be investigated. Since then the two girls were released on bail, and police arrested nine people in connection with the vandalisation of one of the girl’s uncle’s orthopedic clinic. However the issue is still top of mind on social media today, as can be seen by the spin-off hashtag, #ArrestIdeas which is currently the top trending topic on Twitter. Coined no doubt, to give the police more ideas for ludicrous arrests, the tweets range from witty to plain silly. Here are a few: https://twitter.com/rameshsrivats/status/270765368769929216 https://twitter.com/GabbbarSingh/status/270759463198273537 https://twitter.com/wistyloony/status/270761679141343232 https://twitter.com/sajeesh_nerd/status/270778201725366272