For more than ten days, the Army’s Srinagar-based XV Corps, better known as the Chinar Corps, has had its Facebook and Instagram accounts suspended. The handles were restricted shortly after the Republic Day celebrations, according to officials familiar with the situation.
The Facebook page @ChinarCorpsIA has more than 24,000 followers and 23,000 likes, and is even labelled as a “government organisation.” ChinarCorpsIA is the name of the Instagram account, which has roughly 43,300 followers. There were 2,619 postings on the Instagram account.
The handles were restricted on January 28th, according to officials, and no reason was given. They also stated that they contacted Facebook immediately following the occurrence but did not receive a response until Tuesday. Even after officials in Delhi wrote to them, Facebook did not answer.
There was no unusual behaviour, therefore it appears to be an “organised campaign,” according to one official. According to sources, this is part of “information warfare,” and it has happened before, with some social media accounts being blocked for a few days last year. They claimed that the pages may be reported by a big group of individuals as part of a “coordinated” campaign, hinting at pages being reported from people based in Pakistan which could result in the page being suspended.
