New Delhi: Dr APJ Abdul Kalam's Twitter account has been deactivated, 10 days after the sad demise of the former president.
Earlier, it was reported that his fans will maintain the account and keep it active.
However, a discord among his associates has now led to the closure of the account.
Kalam used to tweet from the handle @APJAbdulKalam. After his demise, the handle remained the same, but under the name "In memory of Dr. Kalam".
The bio of the handle after Kalam's demise had read: "Dedicated to the memories of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam (1931-2015)", and under the space for place, it said "In the hearts of Indians".
At the centre of the controversy is his former associate Srijan Pal Singh, who was with Dr Kalam when he died and had tweeted that the account would remain active.
Dr Kalam's office on Wednesday issued a press release in which it disassociated itself from Singh.
Late Dr Kalam's advisor V Ponraj said that Singh was not an official representative of the former president and that he just happened to be with Kalam at IIM Shilong.
The press release said Srijan Pal Singh should not give statements to the media in the name of the former president.
It further went on to state that Singh has already been advised to deactivate all Facebook and Twitter accounts in the name of Dr Kalam immediately.
Speaking to The Times of India, Srijan Pal Singh defended himself and said that Kalam told him to maintain his social networking accounts when he was alive.
However, he added that he was ready to deactivate them, if the office wanted him to do so.
“But they can’t ban me from sharing my experience with him to the people. He was my guru and mentor,” said Singh.
He added: “I co-authored two books with Kalam. We were working on the third one when he died. Kalam was everything to me. I am only talking about my experience with him on my personal capacity. As a private citizen, I think I have every right to do that. No one can stop me.”
