Six years ago, in the backdrop of a suicide bombing attack in Kashmir’s Pulwama district that killed at least 40 Indian security forces, a recording of a call, purported to be between a top Indian minister and a senior functionary of the ruling BJP, and an unidentified woman, was posted by a Facebook user on his timeline.

It took little time for the post to go ‘viral’, a euphemism for the rapid and widespread popularity of social media content. Before the post was taken down by Facebook, it had clocked 2.5 million views and 150,000 shares. Edited versions of the original were viewed 36,000 times on Facebook, 2,800 times on YouTube and 22,000 on the erstwhile Twitter.