Singer Abhijeet Bhattacharya marked his return to Twitter on May 29 with a new account. His last verified Twitter handle was suspended last week for posting offensive and sexist comments directed at several women users. However, not one to take a backseat, Abhijeet returned to the micro-blogging site with a temporary handle “@SingerAbhijeet”. He also posted a video stating that his voice can’t be curbed by “anti-nationals”. However, he couldn’t voice his dissent for long as his new account was also suspended by Twitter.
But why was his handle taken down for the second time? Is it justified on part of Twitter to strike his account down when he did nothing that could be deemed as offensive, this time around.
Well before we answer that question, it is important to look back at the events that led to the suspension of his original account.
It was on May 23 that Abhijeet was caught in the eye of a storm after he went on a rant against JNU student activist Shehla Rashid. He had tweeted several abusive remarks targeted at women activists after which several users had lodged a complaint against the singer.
“There is rumour she took money for two hours and didn’t satisfy the client… big racket,” he wrote about Shehla. When another user jumped in to defend Shehla, he wrote, “You Ms Pak. Tell me your cage no? Will reach there… Will do the favourite pose.”
The 58-year-old singer was accused of using foul language against women and received a lot of flak, after which Twitter decided to suspend his account.
Also read: Singer Abhijeet Bhattacharya’s Twitter account suspended for the second time
A week later when Abhijeet announced his comeback on Twitter, he posted: “People are trying to suppress my voice. I am against those who try to speak against the nation and the Indian Army. This is my new Twitter account.” “Till the time my verified account is not active, please follow me on this Twitter account. All other accounts by my name are fake and are trying to malign my reputation,” he added.
But, much to his disappointment, Twitter has again suspended his account. All he did was support the Indian Army and bashed the “anti-nationals”. But unfortunately for Abhijeet his support for the Indian Army couldn’t protect him from getting suspended a second time. Technically, the micro-blogging site is right in suspending his account again. Lets take an example in the real world. Suppose a person has been suspended from his job for fudging documents or making a mistake at his office. The day he was suspended he was wearing a blue shirt. But the genius employee attempts to work around the suspension and returns to office the next day wearing a green shirt. Will the company take him back? Clearly no. Because, just wearing a new shirt won’t change the person or the crime he has committed, which has led to his suspension. Similarly, for Abhijeet, just changing his Twitter handle wouldn’t change what he has already done.
Looking at Abhijeet’s desperation to make a comeback on Twitter, it seems the singer doesn’t have much to do apart from tweeting. This at a time when his friend and junior in the singing world, Sonu Nigam quit Twitter in his support. So much for taking a stand or is it all about making aggressive and abusive tweets to stay in news?
He must have heard of the saying: “When you commit a crime, do your time”. Instead of coming up with creative ideas on how to circumvent the ban on him, he should read and re-read the screenshots of his tweets which are available online and use his time offline to introspect what he had written and why the ban in completely justified.
Also read: Singer Abhijeet Bhattacharya returns to Twitter, dedicates his first tweet to the Indian Army
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