The tweet has since been deleted but the post wasn’t taken off Facebook despite the actor debunking it as fake.
New Delhi: A Twitter personality, who counts the Prime Minister among his more than one lakh followers, tweeted a fake quote attributed to actor Farhan Akhtar about the communal violence in Uttar Pradesh’s Kasganj. He has since deleted the tweet which was retweeted close to 250 times.
In the tweet, Pradhan had attached a quote attributed to Akhtar, and called the actor an “intellectually-challenged dimwit”.
The actor responded by debunking the statement Tuesday, and tweeted that it was “a malicious tweet with a statement that I did not make being ascribed to me”.
Communal violence broke out in Uttar Pradesh’s Kasganj after a rally on Republic Day. One person was killed, and over 100 people have been arrested for their alleged involvement in the violence. (Read more here)
In his tweet, Akhtar tagged Twitter India, and asked for action be taken against Pradhan.
While Pradhan deleted his original tweet, he responded with another tweet making allegations against Akhtar’s parents. While the original tweet was deleted, Pradhan’s post is still on Facebook, and hasn’t been deleted yet.
Gaurav Pradhan then went on to tweet multiple times about Akhtar, who he claimed had blocked him on Twitter.
Akhtar responded with a tweet warning people that there were ‘sinister forces at work trying to do their best to foster hate’ :
This report was compiled in partnership with SM HoaxSlayer.