New Delhi: Veteran journalist Karan Thapar, who hosts a popular interview show for The Wire, has released a statement noting that fake webpages have been circulating malicious and defamatory content on him and urged people not to believe or act upon them.
“It has come to my notice through friends and well-wishers that fake and fraudulent webpages and Facebook posts using the names of BBC.INDIA and SUNTV are being circulated with malicious and defamatory content about me,” Thapar wrote in the statement.
Thapar, who is president of the company called Infotainment Television Private Limited, has noted that a false interview of his has been represented in a website.
“The said web page on ‘octequiti.com’ shows an alleged conversation between myself and a certain Pujitha Devaraju allegedly of SUNTV where a certain fraudulent money-making scheme website is being promoted with a click bait caption,” he writes.
The portal is currently blocked.
Thapar said in the press release that the content is false and fabricated.
“As a responsible citizen, I deem it necessary to issue my response and place before the general public the true and accurate facts in this regard. Therefore, at the outset, I deny the malicious and defamatory content circulating on social media which is false and fabricated. The general public is hereby requested not to believe or act upon it,” he wrote.
He also added that he “never gave the interview ascribed to” him or made such statements as mentioned in the posts and webpages.
“I have already got the content reported to Facebook and made a complaint to the police about the above defamatory and malicious posts/webpages to take down the content. I have also notified BBC India and SUNTV about the content and urged them to take down the same and take suitable action immediately,” Thapar noted in the statement.
He also requested the general public to verify and fact check the content ascribed to him on social media “before believing or acting upon it or do the same at his or her own risk.”