Congress leader Shashi Tharoor took a dig at trolls on Saturday by tweeting a selfie using the Snapchat dog filter amid the social media furore over AIB posting a meme on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram, who posted the picture with the caption: "Attn all trolls: I took the #DogFilter challenge! @AllIndiaBakchod”, was apparently prodded by the Twitterati to defend AIB comedians.
Trinamool Congress leader Derek O’Brien took to Instagram to post his picture and captioned it: "It's the weekend. Time for a little bit of fun." This was in reply to a Twitter user who had asked O'Brien and Tharoor to be a "sport" and don the "dog-face".
While a section applauded the move and responded by uploading their pictures with the filter in solidarity, many pointed out that uploading your own photo is not the same as uploading that of someone else’s without their permission.
This came just a day after comedy group All India Bakchod (AIB) found itself in legal trouble, with the Mumbai police registering a case against them for using the filter on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's image.
The Mumbai Police's cyber crime cell lodged an FIR against Tanmay Bhat on Saturday for posting offensive content on social media under the IT act, an offence for which the punishment is a fine of Rs five lakh and up to three years of imprisonment.
AIB, after facing social media backlash, had deleted the tweet, but this backtracking was also met with equal amount of criticism with people dubbing the comedy group as "cowardly" and "hypocritical".
The AIB meme showed a doctored image of Modi standing at a railway station using the filter, accompanied by the hashtag #wanderlust.
