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Who is prepared for a 'zombie apocalypse'?

  • Published
    23 September 2016
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zombieImage source, Grandfailure/ ThinkStock
By BBC Trending
What's popular and why

"I am concerned about the readiness of our government in the event of invasion by aliens, zombies and extra dimensional beings".

The words of a Mumbai resident who filed a Right to Information (or RTI) application in order to check how prepared the Indian government are in the event of an attack by other-worldly or "undead" characters from science fiction.

Once the document was shared on Twitter by journalist Abhimanyu Ghoshal, the word "zombie" began to trend in some cities in India.

Dude files RTI request about whether Indian govt. can handle a zombie outbreak. Included my favourite part of request.Image source, Twitter
Image caption,

An RTI filed asking the Indian government if they were prepared for other-worldly invasion. A journalist highlighted his favourite sentence from the document: "Can we do it without Will Smith?"

Several social media users felt Ajay Kumar (the man who filed the RTI) was making a valid point.

"Someone's asking the right questions finally!!" was one comment when the news leaked onto Facebook.

"Ajay Kumar makes sense...Be like Ajay Kumar," was another by user Mishal Johar, who used the tag #Zombiewala (wala means someone with a specific job to undertake).

While social media was having a laugh at Kumar's request, he told Huffington Post India, external that it was, in part, a protest against the inefficiency of politicians:

"They are wasting so much time on silly things. I am sure they would have spent time to look up the word 'extra dimensional' to understand what it means," Kumar said.

Images of reply from India's Home Ministry, called Kumar's enquiry a "hypothetical situation," and redirected the application to another department.

Government response to ZombieImage source, Facebook

BBC Trending called the spokesperson for the Indian Home Ministry, Mr KS Dhatwalia, who said he would respond once he had a chance to "look into" the story.

The origin of the zombie myth, external, (which is a walking, flesh-eating, corpse of a once human being), dates back to the 17th Century. The staple of the horror genre, like TV series The Walking Dead, external, a person can turn into a zombie in many ways - but often they succumb to a virus.

Zombies shown on TV series The Walking DeadImage source, YouTube

Ajay Kumar is not the first person want to know how their country would cope if these mythic creatures became a reality and decided to turn on us.

The Telegraph news site asked the UK's Ministry of Defence, external about the Britain's contingency plans in the event of such, well, events. Like India's Home Ministry, the MoD also passed on the responsibility;

"Any plans to rebuild and return England to its pre-attack glory would be led by the Cabinet Office, and thus any pre-planning activity would also taken place there.

If you are disheartened that no one seems have an adequate plan, worry not. The Pentagon does, external. Although the U.S. Strategic Command stressed that this is for a "fictional training scenario", external and not an actual plan, it had clearly been thought through. The document, named CONPLAN 888, named the use of "hand sanitisers" and to target the flesh-eaters with "firepower to the head".

Let's all hope it doesn't come to that, eh?

Blog by Megha Mohan, external

NEXT STORY: Ghana's problem with 'racist' Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi statueImage source, Daniel Osei Tuffuor

Some academics in Ghana have started a petition to take down a statue of "racist" Gandhi. READ MORE

You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending, external, and find us on Facebook, external. All our stories are at bbc.com/trending.

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