Actor Kanagana Ranaut on Sunday said social media platform Instagram has deleted her post in which she announced that she has tested coronavirus positive and called the infection a “small time flu which got too much press”.

In the post that Instagram took down, she had said: “I have quarantined myself, I had no idea this virus is having a party in my body, now that I know I will demolish it, people please don’t give anything any power over you, if you are scared it will scare you more, come let’s destroy this Covid -19 it is nothing but a small time flu which got too much press and now psyching few people,” according to News18.

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The actor had faced backlash on social media for calling the coronavirus a “small time flu”. The infection is rapidly surging in the county, with thousands dying every day in the past few weeks. On Monday, India registered 3,66,161 new coronavirus cases, taking the tally of infections in the country to 2,26,62,575 since the pandemic broke out in January last year. With 3,754 deaths, the toll climbed to 2,46,116. There are 37,45,237 active cases and 1,86,71,222 patients have recovered from the infection so far.

On Sunday, Ranaut said that Instagram deleted her post where she “threatened to demolish Covid” as some citizens got hurt because of it. “Matlab terrorists and communists sympathisers suna tha Twitter pe lekin [I had heard about terrorists and communist sympathisers on Twitter but] Covid fan club ...awesome,” she said in an Instagram story. “It’s been two days here on insta[gram] but don’t think will last here more than a week.”

This came days after Twitter permanently suspended the actor’s account on May 4. A Twitter spokesperson said Ranaut had repeatedly violated their policy on “hateful conduct and abusive behaviour”. “We’ve been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behaviour that has the potential to lead to offline harm,” the spokesperson had said. “The referenced account has been permanently suspended for repeated violations of Twitter Rules...”

The actor had tweeted about the West Bengal Assembly election and alleged that Bharatiya Janata Party supporters were being targeted after the results were announced. She had urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “tame” Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee using his “virat roop [destructive side]” from “early 2000s”. She was purportedly referring to the 2002 Gujarat riots.