Hyderabad: The IT team which handles the official Twitter account of Hyderabad police @hydcitypolice has blocked city-based RTI activist Vijay Gopal who frequently posted complaints on their handle.
Mr Gopal said he used to highlight traffic violations, especially illegal parking, regularly on the handle. But on Sunday when he tried to report a parking violation at Ameerpet, he found that he cannot access the handle. However, it was revoked after scores of people questioned the ban.
“I had reported several incidents of charging exorbitant parking fee and other violations from various places in the city. The police later contacted me personally and sorted out the matter. However, for reasons unknown to me, the team blocked my handle three days ago. But on Wednesday, I received a direct message from @hydcitypolice and they unblocked me,” he said.
The message from police IT team read: “We regret the inconvenience, we answered your issues earlier, with all status update available with us or which we traced on behalf of you. Dear citizen regarding the issue you reported, we tried our level best to attend, address and answer, we really appreciate your efforts (sic).”
The message from police came after around 200 people questioned the move on the Twitter handle. @abhinav_karthik said, “They blocked you instead of addressing issues (sic).”
Another post from @bhargavgunreddy said, “Isn’t that your job as a police, please don’t make that as an excuse to block someone, man up, you (police) are representing @hydpolice, not the person who's tweeting on behalf of them (sic).”
