Did a photograph showing Indian prime minister Narendra Modi touching the feet of a Saudi king appear on your timeline? You perhaps took it with a pinch of salt, and you were right. 

It’s fake. Morphed.

Like many, the photograph was shared by a CNN-IBN (@ibnlive) journalist on Twitter, and the outrage over it escalated so much that the channel had to issue an apology. Actually, the journalist is under fire from the government and might even face heat from journalist associations.

Raghav Chopra, whose Linkedin profile describes him as News Editor with CNN-IBN, raked up a row after he shared this:

Among the many who pointed out to Chopra that the photo was morphed was BJP lawmaker Maheish Girri.

Girri also shared the original photo where Modi is seen touching the feet of senior BJP leader LK Advani.

And he slammed Chopra for “insulting India”.

The MP was unrelenting and appealed for action against the journo

The BJP is furious, evident from that even the Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting, Rajyavardhan Rathore, took note

Back To Chopra’s timeline. While it was exploding with criticism, the journo miffed the ‘bhakts’ further with this:

But clearly, Chopra must have sensed the gravity of the situation when, just hours later, he gave in and simply apologised

And we knew it had become big when even the channel, CNN-IBN, sent out an apology on Twitter: