The police in Uttar Pradesh’s Bulandshahr district have booked two senior officials of Twitter India over the social media platform putting up a distorted map of India that showed Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh as a separate country. The FIR was lodged on the basis of a complaint by an office-bearer of right-wing Bajrang Dal, PTI reported. 

“The world map does not show Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir as parts of India. This is not a coincidence. This act has hurt the sentiments of Indians, including me,” Bajrang Dal’s western UP convenor Praveen Bhati said in the complaint, PTI reported.

The FIR names Twitter India MD Manish Maheshwari and News Partnerships Head Amrita Tripathi as accused who have been booked under Indian Penal Code section 505 (2) (public mischief).

The map appeared on the career section of the Twitter website under the header ‘Tweep Life’. It triggered a backlash from netizens, who demanded strict action against the microblogging platform. #TwitterBan was trending on Twitter with almost 17,000 tweets.

Twitter removed the map on Monday evening following the backlash.