Paresh Rawal Deletes Tweet On Arundhati Roy, Says 'Coerced By Twitter'

New Delhi: Veteran actor and BJP lawmaker Paresh Rawal alleged that he was "coerced by Twitter" into deleting a controversial tweet that targeted author Arundhati Roy. He also strongly defended his tweet, not flinching at the immense criticism it drew.

In a statement, Mr Rawal said, "With this letter, I inform to all my supporters and citizens of this country that I am being coerced to delete something I tweeted on May 21, or else Twitter would block my account."

In the tweet that is now deleted, he had written: "Instead of tying stone pelter on the army jeep tie up Arundhati Roy!" It referred to the incident of an army officer strapping a protester to his jeep as a "human shield" against stone-throwers in Kashmir.

It is not known what provoked the actor-politician's outrageous tweet; many accused him of inciting violence.

The Lok Sabha parliamentarian from Gujarat, however, declared on Wednesday, "I Paresh Rawal, citizen of India, continue to defend my tweet and support my expression which was made without any prejudice to gender, race, religion or caste. More importantly, I maintain that I ardently love my country and support my country unwaveringly, I stand by and will continue to stand by the citizens and Indian armed forces under any situation and at any cost."

Yesterday, singer Abhijeet's Twitter account was suspended over his offensive posts, especially those targeting women. After that, his colleague Sonu Nigam announced that he was also quitting the microblogging site.

The human shield footage was among a series of videos that surfaced in Kashmir last month, showing clashes between protesters and security personnel in Kashmir. A young man was strapped to the front of an army jeep as protection from stone-throwers in the footage that was widely condemned.