Modi cautions against online fraud in his name
If you are afraid of falling victim to online fraud, don’t fret. Even the Prime Minister might not be immune to his name being misused. Narendra Modi, who enjoys a stupendous popularity in social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, posted on Wednesday the specimen of a letter that had been circulated with a wrong attribution to him.
Cautioning people, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) tweeted: “Few appeals with PM’s ‘signature’ are circulated on social media. Such documents are not authentic.” Sources in the PMO said in the last few weeks, appeals on different issues, including monetary donation, had started doing the rounds in popular social media circles. This prompted the PMO to caution people against such fraud acts. The BJP-led government is trying to find out the culprits behind these appeals, sources added.
In May, a man was arrested by Gangavati town police in Koppal district of north Karnataka for allegedly posting a morphed photo of the Prime Minister on a social media site. The photo showed the PM bowing to the feet of Telangana legislative assembly member Akbaruddin Owaisi from All-India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen party.
Last week, Modi pipped megastar Amitabh Bachchan to become the most followed Indian on Twitter. As on August 27, the PM had 22,164,942 followers on the social networking platform, while Bachchan marginally trailed with 22,044,167 at the last count.
In January, Modi’s Twitter followers surpassed that of superstar Shah Rukh Khan. Modi, then, became the second most followed Indian on Twitter with over 17,371,600 followers, compared to Khan’s 17,351,100.