The Times of India (TOI) on Tuesday tendered an apology for carrying a misleading image of a Hindu saint in an article titled, “Maharashtra ‘godman’ forces men into unnatural sex, held”.
As reported by us, the article carried a social share image depicting a Hindu saint which insinuated that the crime was committed by a Hindu:
Shockingly though the content reveals that the accused was actually was Muslim named Asif Noori. Incidentally, TOI had earlier too given misleading spins to such reports which included calling Muslim godmen as “Tantriks” and “Swamis” in its story headlines.
Such a repeated offence by TOI resulted in a furore on social media, following which the newspaper has tendered an apology:
https://twitter.com/timesofindia/status/1021643457322991617?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Even though it appeared that TOI wanted to desperately put this incident behind it, social media users were in no mood to let the newspaper off the hook:
https://twitter.com/ramprasad_c/status/1021654341198000128?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/vibhor_anand/status/1021658072119484416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/nanditathhakur/status/1021649753686208512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
One user even questioned why the updated image depicted a child and not a Muslim cleric, considering the newspaper was keen on giving a religious angle via the image:
https://twitter.com/rksandhu63/status/1021643734738395136?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
It remains to be seen whether TOI would take lessons from this episode and prevent the occurrence of such malicious incidents in the future.