A Delhi police deputy commissioner has tweeted he never imagined people would be jailed for bursting crackers on Diwali and signed off with “Jai Sri Ram”, triggering an uproar that forced him to apologise.

“Diwali pe bamb/pataka bajane pe jail ho sakti hain. Kabhi socha nahin ke ye din aayega. Kya main apne Bharat desh me hi hoon? Jai Sri Ram. Jai Hind,” Devender Arya, deputy commissioner (southwest), tweeted.

Fearing the tweet would amount to contempt of the Supreme Court, which had imposed restrictions on the bursting of firecrackers, senior officers chided Arya and got him to delete the post.

Arya then tweeted the apology: “It was a momentary inadvertent slip on my part. It does not reflect any opinion/view. I sincerely apologise for this inadvertent slip.”

On Diwali night, the police had struggled to implement the court’s restrictions, which were violated widely.

After Arya’s tweet, the police brass met hurriedly on Friday night and asked their media wing to issue a statement saying the officer had tweeted from his personal handle and that the Delhi police had nothing to do with it.

Arya, a 2008-batch IPS officer, is known to be soft-spoken. His wife is also an IPS officer posted in Delhi.