Tough to check use of social media by gangsters: ADGP
BATHINDA: Amid gangsters flaunting their exploits and expressing their views regularly on social media, Punjab additional director general of police (ADGP, law and order) Rohit Chaudhary on Saturday said it is difficult to check this trend.
Many gangsters had hailed the murder of gangster-turnedpolitician Jaswinder Singh ‘Rocky’ on Facebook last year. More recently, Vicky Gounder — who fled the Nabha jail last November — termed the suicide by three gangsters after been cornered by the police in Haryana as a fake encounter. Such posts are shared and reacted to widely by youngsters.
ADGP Chaudhary, who was here to attend a meeting with police officials of Bathinda, Mansa and Muktsar, said since social media websites like Facebook are based abroad, “we don’t have much control” over them.
“New tools are coming up (to monitor criminals’ activities on social media), but it is an evolving media and technology keeps changing,” said Chaudhary. “Other security agencies are also working on it.”
Raising concern over their adverse impact of young minds, the ADGP said his department has launched a campaign to bring gangsters, who were misled into the world of crime, back into the mainstream.
“The purpose of the campaign is that those coming in influence of such posts on social media do not become criminals permanently,” he said.