Sibal agonized by ‘morphed’ free speech pic, vows action

In a major setback to union anti-free speech minister Kapil Sibal, pics of him sporting a pro free speech tee appeared on major blogs across the nation on Thursday evening. The pic was allegedly taken when the minister was in college over 400 years ago and is now floating around on the internet.

“I am agonized. This is what I was speaking against the other day. I mean can’t you see that it is a morphed pic? I have never worn such t shirts in my life and besides who is that chick behind me? What’s her story? I have had enough of these bloggers fooling around with important personalities for increasing their alexa ranking. I am cracking the whip. By tomorrow evening, if these two penny bloggers don’t pull down the pic, I will make sure that Diggi visits each one and gives them a piece of his mind,” an angry Sibal said.

Kapil Sibal's free speech pic

Sibal said that if that too doesn’t work, the government will consider shutting down broadband access in the country to non-corporate users. “They didn’t have to take this to a personal level. I mean after seeing the pic my wife has refused to speak to me which is fine. But my kids have shifted to my neighbor’s house and that is not good. When I was in college, Aurangazeb was heading the government and we did not have any free speech whatsoever and in such a situation do you think I would have supported free speech? I would have been guillotined like a carrot within seconds,” Sibal said.  

“What hurts me more is that I was never in favour of free speech throughout my life and do you think I will change now,” he added. Meanwhile the Bloggers Association of India (BAI) has decided to stick with the story. “We continue to abide by the story and remain invested in attesting to the authenticity of the image being referred to by the minister,” a release issued by BAI said.

Two sites which had uploaded the pic received an auto tax notice from the IT department yesterday evening.