Government has ‘No Information' About Social Media Trolls Who Blamed Foreign Secretary for Ceasefire
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Government has 'No Information' About Social Media Trolls Who Blamed Foreign Secretary for Ceasefire
The Wire Staff
5 minutes ago
Both the MEA and the MEITY said they have 'no information' about the handles that viciously trolled Misri and his family.
In this image posted by @IndianEmbTokyo on X on May 22, 2025, foreign secretary Vikram Misri speaks during the inaugural session of Raisina Tokyo. Photo via PTI.
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New Delhi: The Union government has no information about the social media handles who had unleashed vicious troll attacks on foreign secretary Vikram Misri and his daughter during last month's military conflict with Pakistan, right to information (RTI) queries have revealed.
The Wire had reported that Misri locked his X account on May 11 after he was viciously trolled on social media following the ceasefire announced between India and Pakistan.
No one from the Union government, including external affairs minister S. Jaishankar, has yet condemned the trolling or come out in his support.
Misri as foreign secretary helmed the Ministry of External Affairs's briefings during the four-day military conflict with Pakistan following the launch of Operation Sindoor.
The move to lock his account came after right-wing X accounts called him a 'traitor' and blamed him for the ceasefire, dug out old posts that he had shared of his family, and targeted his daughter for studying abroad and 'providing legal aid to Rohingya refugees from Myanmar'.
Venkatesh Nayak, director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, filed separate RTI queries with the Ministry of External Affairs as well as the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology seeking a list of social media accounts that have been identified by the competent agency in each of the ministries that are known to have initiated and participated in the trolling and online abuse of Misri and his family.
Both ministries reverted with identical replies saying that there is no such information available on the topic.
In his appeal filed to the Ministry of External Affairs following its response saying it had no information, Nayak wrote that the government has acted to 'take down other kinds of offensive content from social media and other digital media platforms, in the past'.
'Other public authorities under this Government have quickly acted to invoke the relevant provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the applicable Information Technology Rules, to get CERT-IN to take down other kinds of offensive content from social media and other digital media platforms, in the past. It is unbelievable that this Ministry has not acted in a similar manner with regard to the recent trolling of the Foreign Secretary,' he wrote in his appeal.
'The CPIO [central public information officer]'s obtuse and evasive reply amounts to admitting that this Government did nothing to take action against the social media accounts and their offensive operators who attacked the Foreign Secretary with extreme prejudice and using very offensive language.
'This does not inspire any degree of confidence in the minds of us, the citizenry, about this Government's ability to protect its senior functionaries from attacks on social media platforms. This also does not align with this Government's policy of not keeping quiet when violence is committed against Indian citizens and their property by external enemies and their local agents,' he added.
However, in response to his appeal, Nayak got the same reply from the ministry of external affairs: 'The information is not available with this office.'
While the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology also said that it does not have any information about the topic, Nayak is yet to file an appeal with it.
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