A blood donation app created a furore on Twitter late Thursday night, by posting a requirement for blood specifically mentioning the prospective donor’s caste.

Blood+, which calls itself a ‘Social Blood Donation App’ tweeted on Thursday night:

Kammas are a dominant, landholding social group mostly present in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. The tweet got 25 re-tweets and 5 likes. Predictably, several people reacted sharply to the casteist tweet.

One Twitter user even wanted to help and asked if he could donate blood, despite being a Brahmin.

The handle has apologised for the tweets, adding that it had only posted the requirement forwarded by a source, and promised to ‘take greater care’ in the future.

However, some users pointed out that the source of the blood donation request was dubious. The mobile number provided with the request was not reachable. Users also pointed out that the handle from which the request had generated – @shekharnews – is known for his casteist tweets.

The handle in question – @shekharnews – cannot be accessed anymore, and it seems to have been deleted after all the attention it attracted. Conversations on caste and politics generate a lot of interest both offline and online in India, which probably explains why someone would propagate a hoax caste-based blood donation request to get traction on social media.

What is unfortunate, however, is a life-saving cause like blood donation is being dragged into online caste wars.