How a controversial social media post exposed a fake Maharashtra police Instagram handle

The accused has now been summoned by the Mumbai Police which was asked to probe the matter. The particular handle, which the police suspect was used to invite police recruitment aspirants, has now been blocked.

A senior official from Maharashtra police said a person was running an Instagram handle called themaharashtrapolice and used the symbol of Maharashtra police.

During Operation Sindoor, the handle shared an Instagram story which had photographs of several Bollywood celebrities which read, “Its safe now. You can crawl back to Instagram, no risk of upsetting your international fanbase.”

“The post went viral and some web portals ran a story saying we had shared such a post. We checked our Instagram handle and no such post had been put up. We realized that another person who used our symbol and name had put up the post,” the officer told The Indian Express.

Senior officers then went through the account which also appeared to upload posts regarding recruitment into Maharashtra police.

“Prima facie it appears that one of the several institutes across the state that trains youngsters to give police recruitment exams was using our details to get more eyeballs,” the official said.

“It is an offence to use the police flag and name of the force to misguide people on social media. The account posted regularly and had more followers than our official account on Instagram increasing the probability of misinformation,” the official said.

The official added that there are some accounts that use the name of Maharashtra police on social media platforms but give some clarification like it is a fan account etc.

Based on the complaint, the Mumbai police registered an FIR in the case nearly two weeks back. The police traced the person and have summoned him for questioning.