#BrusselsLockdown: Belgians tweet pictures of cats during city-wide terror alert

When Belgian police placed the capital city under a terror lockdown over the weekend, they asked the public for social media silence regarding their operations.

Twitter users decided to comply while posting some hilarious images of their favourite felines, looking scary, cute and even suspicious.

Brussels was under its third day of lockdown as police continued to hunt for suspected terrorists, who are reportedly plotting an “imminent” attack on Brussels similar to the one that unfolded in Paris, according to The Verge.

According to AFP, the idea was reportedly launched by a cameraman for the Dutch television channel NOS, Hugo Janssen, who tweeted: “Instead of tweets about police activity in Brussels, here’s a picture of our cat Mozart”.

Instead of tweets about the police anti-terror operation, which would have risked tipping of the suspects, Twitter was flooded with humorous memes of cats accompanied with the hashtag #BrusselsLockdown.

Belgian authorities were thankful that the public adhered with their request.

On Monday, they tweeted a symbol of their appreciation after the raid ended: a bowl of cat food “for the cats who helped us yesterday.”