Police book AIB for mocking PM

The Mumbai police on Friday filed a FIR against AIB co-founder and stand-up comedian Tanmay Bhat for allegedly mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The FIR was lodged by the Cyber Crime police station of Mumbai police, Deputy Commissioner of Police Rashmi Karandikar, the police spokesperson said. The AIB had portrayed the PM in poor light.

AIB had posted an image of a look-alike of Modi at a railway station, along with a photo of the PM with a Snapchat dog filter, captioned #wanderlust. The meme, seen as a dig at PM Modi's foreign tours, provoked strong reactions.  However, it was deleted after protests on the social media.

A Twitter user, Reetesh Maheshwari, wrote to the Mumbai police handle, calling the meme an unbearable prank and asked for a legal action against this. The Mumbai police took cognizance of it and initiated action. “Thank you for bringing this to our notice. We are forwarding this to the cyber police station,” the Mumbai Police tweeted.