Mumbai Police is always on point when it comes to creative ways of dispersing important public service announcements on the social media. From following road safety rules to COVID-19 related norms, the police department does know how to hammer home vital messages on its various social media platforms. In an ingenuous post on Instagram on April 22, the Mumbai Police have once again used wit and humour to highlight the importance of staying at home to contain the surge of COVID-19 positive cases. The message captioned, “Kyunki Har Message Ka Reply Dena Zaruri Nahin Hota Hai!” (Not all messages require a reply!) has a screen showing realistic mocks of WhatsApp chats.
It shows a host of contacts (dubbed Office Friend, Travel Friend, Society Friend, and more) asking a person to meet up outdoors. The messages range from “Let’s go out for some air!” to “Wanna Eat Outdoor?”. However, the person to whom these messages have been addressed has just ignored them, implying that stepping out for some fresh air, dinner, or a walk can mean inviting the coronavirus home.
The post received over 16,000 ‘likes’ with users leaving a deluge of appreciative and fun comments. While a user named lovelysingh8889 commented, “Keep motivated Mumbai police,” another user jeetesh_chavan wrote, “Some times its good to say NO”. Another user tia_theimageacademy commented “Bang on” while vibhuti_matale commended the ingenuity of the police department and wrote “@mumbaipolice upping their media game. Wow.”
In one of the funnier comments, samp37_ even wrote, “No wonder where my crush gets ideas of ignoring my msgs.”
Even in the past, the Mumbai Police posted funny and witty takes on various issues on its social media handles to raise awareness. In March, the police department had posted a series of advertisements on Twitter to highlight the need of wearing masks. They were a play on the taglines of popular brands.
Before that, the Mumbai Police had added a creative twist to a hit 90s track, “Aaj main upar, aasmaan neeche” from the movie Khamoshi: The Musical to spread awareness on COVID-19.
On April Fool’s Day, too, they had a funny and interesting take on those flouting COVID-19 norms. Their Instagram post had an image that read: “The pandemic is over.” The caption reads, “Thinks that fool roaming without a mask.”
On Thursday, April 22, Maharashtra registered 67,013 new cases and has over 6.99 lakh active cases. With these, the total count of COVID-19 cases in the state is now at over 40.9 lakhs.
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