UP Police cashes in on Virat-Gambhir face-off, its tweet goes viral

The Uttar Pradesh Police in a tweet used the recent face-off between star India batter Virat Kohli and former opener Gautam Gambhir, to promote awareness about its emergency helpline number 112, garnering immediate traffic.

"No matter is 'Virat' (big) and 'Gambhir' (serious) for us. For any emergency situation, dial 112," UP Police said Tuesday in a tweet in Hindi, clocking 1.5 million views and around 44,000 likes.

The state police also posted a snapshot of the on-field altercation with the tweet. In another tweet with the same context, UP Police posted from its official Twitter handle @Uppolice, "Refrain from arguments, not from calling us. Dial 112 in case of any emergency."

The state police has been on a spree posting similar tweets on matters of public interest. On May 1, it tweeted, "Calling for strategic timeout on loudspeakers. Don't let your speakers blast cheers for favourite teams after 10 pm. Keep the sporting spirit and volumes under control," with the hashtag #NoHallaInOurmohalla.

The face-off between the Kohli and Gambhir took place Monday night during an Indian Premier League (IPL) match here between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Lucknow Super Giants.

Kohli, one of RCB's batting mainstays, and Gambhir, the LSG mentor, were seen having a heated argument after the Bengaluru-based team won the match by 18 runs.

Both the teams were fined 100 per cent of their match fees for breaching Article 2.21 of the IPL code of conduct, which relates to public acts of misconduct, unruly public behaviour and inappropriate comments that are detrimental to the interest of the game.

UP Police has 2.9 million followers on Twitter.