Kangana Ranaut’s Twitter account permanently suspended after she calls for violence

The micro-blogging site Twitter has permanently suspended actress Kangana Ranaut’s account after a tweet in which she appeared to be calling for retaliatory violence in light of reports of bloodshed in West Bengal following the assembly election results on Sunday.

Justifying its actions, Twitter said in a statement, “We’ve been clear that we’ll take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm. The account has been permanently suspended for repeated violations of Twitter rules, specifically our hateful conduct policy and abusive behaviour policy."

The controversial tweet, which has been deleted after her profile was suspended, read, “This is horrible... We need super gundai [violence by goons] to kill gundai. She [referring to West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee] is like an unleashed monster. To tame her Modiji please show your Virat roop from early 2000s [a reference to the 2002 riots in Gujarat under his watch].”

Interestingly, Modi and the BJP have consistently denied any role in the violence that broke out in Gujarat in February-March 2002 after some compartments of a train returning from Uttar Pradesh with karsewaks from Ayodhya were set on fire at Godhra. Modi, who was chief minister of Gujarat at the time, has insisted that he moved quickly to call in the army and quell the violence. His detractors, however, characterize the violence as a pogrom rather than a riot.

Reacting to the news of her banishment from Twitter, Ranaut told the news agency Asian News International (ANI), “Twitter has only proved my point. They are Americans and by birth a white person feels entitled to enslave a brown person. They want to tell you what to think, speak or do. I have many platforms I can use to raise my voice, including my own art in the form of cinema.”

She added, “But my heart goes out to the people of this nation who have been tortured, enslaved, and censored for thousands of years, and still, there is no end to the suffering.”

Twitter has only proved my point they're Americans & by birth, a white person feels entitled to enslave a brown person, they want to tell you what to think, speak or do. I have many platforms I can use to raise my voice, including my own art in the form of cinema: Kangana Ranaut pic.twitter.com/isGS4QqOQo

— ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2021

But my heart goes out to the people of this nation who have been tortured, enslaved, and censored for thousands of years, and still, there is no end to the suffering: Actor Kangana Ranaut

— ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2021

We’ve been clear that we'll take strong enforcement action on behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm. The account has been permanently suspended for repeated violations of Twitter Rules specifically our Hateful Conduct policy&Abusive Behaviour policy:Twitter Spox

— ANI (@ANI) May 4, 2021

There have been reports of violence in West Bengal since yesterday. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders have blamed Banerjee’s victorious Trinamool Congress (TMC) and said their workers have been killed by TMC workers. The TMC has rejected the charge.

Ranaut's sister Rangoli Chandel’s Twitter account was suspended in April last year after she, too, called for violence against members of the Tablighi Jamaat, a Muslim religious organization, who were being demonized at the time for allegedly spreading COVID-19, a charge that was later found to be baseless by the courts.