Paresh Rawal says being coerced to remove tweets against Arundhati Roy

Paresh Rawal, actor and Member of Parliament from Ahmedabad East constituency, who has been in news recently for controversial tweets he made against author and activist Arundhati Roy, on Wednesday said that he was coerced to delete his tweets.

“I inform to all my supporters and citizens of the country, that I am being coerced to delete something I tweeted on 21st May, or else twitter would block my account,” he was quoted to have stated in a letter on Wednesday.

The Parliamentarian had on May 21 in support of army major who used a citizen in Kashmir as Human shield had tweet that “Instead of tying stone pelter on the army jeep tie Arundhati Roy!” He later apparently also supported the same treatment for a senior journalist. This had sparked off a major controversy on the social media platform.

Rawal in a publicly issued letter on Wednesday, which was confirmed by his office as his official stance, said that, “I Paresh Rawal - citizen of India, continue to defend my tweet and support my expression which was made without any prejudice to gender, race or caste.”

He went on to state that he stood by and “will continue to stand by the citizens and Indian Armed forces under any situation and at any cost.”

However, his twitter handle did not show the controversial tweet on late Wednesday evening.