Television news anchor Rajdeep Sardesai on Saturday decided to disable his handle on social networking site Twitter.

"I have gone on a Twitter detox break," said Sardesai, Consulting Editor at the India Today Network, in a text message to Scroll. "Enough of character assassination and slander for a while with no legal recourse."

Before suspending his account on Saturday afternoon, Sardesai had put out this final tweet:

Sardesai did not elaborate on what exactly had led to his decision.

However, there were allegations circulating on Twitter earlier in the day that Sardesai had been sending abusive personal messages to his critics on the site. Screenshots of the same were circulated on the platform. Sardesai did not address any of these allegations.

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Sardesai has been a prominent figure on Twitter, and actively uses the platform for his shows. He has often been the target of Twitter trolls who accuse him of being biased against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party. In many instances in the past, he has robustly engaged with these critics.

In September 2014, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was addressing a gathering of non-resident Indians in New York, Sardesai got into an altercation with a group of hecklers outside the venue. He claimed to have been manhandled, but also subsequently expressed regret for "hurling an expletive and lunging towards a person" after being provoked.

On Saturday, Sardesai's decision to quit Twitter became a big talking point on the social media platform, with characteristic polarised reactions.

In August last year, online abuse had led to NDTV news anchor Ravish taking himself off social media platforms. In an interview to Scroll, Ravish spoke against online trolls, alleging that lynch mobs were spreading lies and slander on platforms like Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp. Ravish said that after a lifetime of hard work and remaining uninfluenced, he was unwilling to hear allegations that he was a dalaal (tout).