Eight Indians have been arrested for making “offensive” social media posts about the death of the country’s military chief in a helicopter crash, according to officials speaking to AFP on Monday and local reports.
General Bipin Rawat, who was killed along with his wife and 11 others in last week’s accident, was a hugely popular figure seen as close to Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
But he also courted controversy, in one instance presenting an award to an officer who tied a civilian in occupied Kashmir to the front of his military vehicle in a show of force.
One man was arrested within hours of the chopper crash for posting to Instagram that Rawat had “burnt alive even before entering Jahannum.”
He was arrested along with two others in Rajasthan state for “hurting public sentiment”, police con-firmed to AFP. Five other arrests across India were reported by local media outlets on the weekend.
A bank staffer in Jammu district was suspended from work after accusations she had reacted to a Face-book news post of Rawat’s death with an emoji of a laughing face.
