Raghav Chopra, a journalist with CNN-IBN, invited the wrath of the BJP after he tweeted a morphed image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi touching the feet of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
“Will someone tell me what’s Modi ji doing in Saudi? Can’t be what it looks like surely,” Chopra said in the tweet, which he has now deleted.
BJP on Tuesday filed a complaint against a journalist even as the government said it is looking into the matter.
Arvind Gupta, the party’s technology cell in-charge, filed a complaint with the Cyber Cell of Delhi Police against the journo for “tweeting morphed images of PM Modi”. “We have filed a complaint. The Cyber Cell will take due action in this regard,” he said.
The journalist, who later expressed regret for the “error”, had posted a picture in which the Prime Minister is seen bowing before a Saudi leader. Modi returned from a visit to Saudi Arabia past last midnight. The fake post led to anger on the social media, with BJP MP Maheish Girri drawing the attention of the I&B ministry.
When attacked by right-wing trolls, Chopra initially defended his post. But as the situation became increasingly grave, Chopra tweeted out an apology, saying “I sincerely regret posting a morphed picture of the PM on my Facebook page. I should have also verified its authenticity before tweeting it.” “I apologise to everyone concerned for this unfortunate error on my part,” he said in another tweet.
The private TV news channel also said that a morphed picture had been posted by one of its staff. “The organisation was not aware of this unfortunate lapse of judgment. We apologies to everyone for this confusion & deeply regret the error,” the channel tweeted.
However over the course of the past few years, BJP supporters and even the Modi government’s IT cell has shared morphed images of Modi. A black-and-white photo of Modi holding a broom was fake.
Modi’s photo posted by Press Information Bureau, which showed him in a helicopter during an aerial survey of flood-hit Chennai, was also photoshopped.