New Delhi, June 11: Congress leader Digvijaya Singh has apologised for his gaffe, where he tweeted an old image of a metro pillar from Pakistan and claimed it to be a railway bridge in Bhopal. The intention behind his tweet was to question BJP's effort towards citizen's safety. He highlighted a crack that can be seen in the image and pointed out to the mishap that took place in Varanasi, where two pillars of a flyover collapsed, killing 18 people. He feared that something similar would happen in Bhopal too.

According to an NDTV report, the error was pointed out by a fact-checking website AltNews, who pointed out that it was an old image of a broken metro pillar in Pakistan and not Bhopal. Singh was quick to realise his mistake, and he apologised saying 'My apologies. One of my friends sent it to me. My fault I didn't check up." Reportedly, the same image was used to target the Telangana government.

A similar thing happened with actress Shabana Aazmi a few days back, who tweeted to the Indian Railways a video allegedly showing railways staff washing dishes in dirty water. Indian Railways quickly pointed out that the video was from a restaurant in Malaysia.

In today's age, when things can become viral in a jiffy, it becomes essential to cross-check facts before putting it on social media.  People who have significant social media following, need to be more careful about it, not only to avoid blunders but also to stop spreading fake news.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 11, 2018 09:39 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).