DHAKA: Best-selling Indian novelist Chetan Bhagat faced nationwide anger on social media sites on Wednesday after tweeting that the country’s plunging currency had been ‘raped’.

The comments by Bhagat, known for his romantic, funny novels which are popular with India`s middle-class youth, came amid renewed outrage over violence against women after the gang-rape in Mumbai of a photographer last week.

Twitter users slammed the former investment banker for the tweet, in which Bhagat said, ‘The rupee is asking, is there no punishment for my rapists?’, accusing him of trivialising a grave problem.

‘Making fun of a serious offence rather an inhuman act & comparing with downfall of Rupee is NOT AT ALL funny,’ wrote one user, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 1835 HRS, AUG 28, 2013
RoR/GCP