BBC News shows clips of THESE VETERANS instead of Shashi Kapoor, apologises later

Day before yesterday, Bollywood lost a gem of an artist as the nation lost a man with a golden heart. Veteran actor Shashi Kapoor who was 79, passed away after a prolonged illness. The entire country mourned the loss and Bollywood was all about giving tributes to the thespian. However, amidst all this something really unexpected happened. BBC, an international news channel did the biggest blunder as they played a video with clippings of Amitabh Bachchan and Rishi Kapoor, instead of Shashi Kapoor.

Presenter Huw Edwards announced the death of the veteran actor by playing two video clips but sadly none of the clips showed Shashi Kapoor. One clip had Amitabh Bachchan while the other had Shashi’s nephew Rishi Kapoor. A Twitter page shared the video with the caption, “Shocking to note @BBC insults a veteran actor Shashi Kapoor by showing clips of @SrBachchan & @chintskap whilst reporting his death today!!!
@BBC must apologize!!! Clearly they have no clue. RIP Shashi Kapoor ???”

Shocking to note @BBC insults a veteran actor Shashi Kapoor by showing clips of @SrBachchan & @chintskap whilst reporting his death today!!!@BBC must apologize!!! Clearly they have no clue.

RIP Shashi Kapoor ??? pic.twitter.com/XMT4QJCy53

— GABBAR (@Gabbar_food) December 4, 2017

This video brought about severe criticism for the news channel. And many amongst those to criticise it were the corporation’s own stars. Adil Ray, creator and co-writer of BBC One’s Citizen Khan tweeted, “Someone at the BBC thought the brown person in this VT is the same person. Worse still, neither of them are the deceased actor Huw refers to. It’s poor when it would have taken them seconds to verify. Not enough care.” (Also Read: SRK, Ranbir, Big B and others attend Shashi Kapoor’s last rites ceremony)

Aasmah Mir who is the presenter for the Saturday Live on BBC Radio 4 stated that she was “really annoyed” by this huge mistake. And finally, BBC rendered an apology by issuing a statement which said, “BBC News at Ten is very sorry the wrong images were used to mark the death of Shashi Kapoor. The piece did not meet its usual standards and the programme has apologised for any upset.” Also one recollects how an Indian TV channel mistakenly addressed Congress politician Shashi Tharoor instead of Shashi Kapoor while reporting about his demise on Twitter. They also apologised later on.

It’s quite unfortunate when such things happen as everybody gets a topic to start trolling. We pray for the family of actor Shashi Kapoor.

Inputs from IANS

Prajakta Ajgaonkar

Passionate about writing, and a Bollywood lover, she is all that is sweet and endearing! She desires to put her best foot forward in everything that she does and loves to help anyone who’s in need.