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IAF strike: Twitter turns battleground as memes, one-liners come thick and fast

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Press Trust of India New Delhi

As India struck a JeM training camp in Pakistan early Tuesday, Twitter transformed into nothing less than a social media battleground with users deploying Bollywood references, clever words, humour and other arrows in their arsenal to make their point.

Both Indians and Pakistanis jumped at the opportunity to get down to action on the micro-blogging site, and in no time hashtags like #surgicalstrike2, #indiastrikespakistan, #indiastrikesback were topping the trending list.

Memes, videos and one-liners came thick and fast.

One of the most popular tweets from this side of the border was a tweaked version of a dialogue from the Bollywood film "Uri: The Surgical Strike".

 

"How's the Jaish?/Dead Sir," several twitter users wrote and many others retweeted.

The oft-quoted dialogue from the hit film is, "How's the josh? High Sir."

A tweet by Pakistan Defence posted Tuesday midnight -- "Sleep tight because PAF is awake. #PakistanZindabad" -- also became the butt of jokes for India's twitterati.

"PAF: Sleep tight because PAF is awake. Reply from IAF: 3:30am, Jaag ke kya ukhaad liya? (What did you achieve by being awake?) #Surgicalstrike2."

Even politician Omar Abdullah couldn't help but join in.

Retweeting Pakistan Defence's post, he wrote, "This one will be filed under 'tweets we wish we hadn't put out but can't delete now'. Don't worry we all have them just not on this scale perhaps."

Some tweets also took a jibe at Pakistan's rejection of India's claim over destroying a terror camp.

"When America killed Osama, they claimed that Osama wasn't in Pakistan. When India killed the terrorists of 26/11 attack, they claimed that they were not Pakistanis. When India took surgical strike, They claimed/claiming that nothing has happened. #surgicalstrike2," a tweet read.

Famous scenes from Bollywood films also came in handy for Twitterati who used them as memes to express their pride and excitement over the IAF's achievement.

A tweet by Aam Aadmi Party's handle shared an iconic scene from "Border" where Sunny Deol is seen giving a thumbs up to pilot Jackie Shroff flying the fighter aircraft.

Users also posted a scene from the Salman-Govinda starrer 'Partner' to convey their "itni khushi" -- a famous dialogue in the film.

Videos of celebrations in Kolkata and Gujarat showing people distributing sweets and bursting crackers were doing the rounds on social media.

Pakistanis also mocked India's claim that the strikes in Balakot allegedly killed around 350 terrorists.

A large number of tweets circulated pictures of bombing shared by Major General Asif Ghafoor, director general of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the Pakistan Army, captioned, "Payload of hastily escaping Indian aircrafts fell in open."

According to these tweets, what the Indian Air Force bombed was not a terror camp but simply trees.

"My name is tree and I am not a terrorist. #Surgicalstrike2," a tweet read.

Sharing the same images, a user wrote, "#SurgicalStrike2 my foot Indian's April Fool day."

Another post read, "Are you sure! that ..these trees are terrorist...?????? #Surgicalstrike2"

The pinpointed and swift air strike, lasting less than two minutes, was a "preventive" operation, officials in India said.

Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said it became "absolutely necessary" as the Pakistan based JeM was planning more suicide attacks in India after the February 14 Pulwama terror attack that killed 40 soldiers.

Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content

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First Published: Feb 26 2019 | 7:10 PM IST

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