News channel NDTV, in a 14 October report, said that a Tanishq store in Gujarat’s Gandhidham was ”attacked” by a mob. However, hours later, it modified its report to say that the store was not attacked. It came after alert social media users called out the misreporting.

The original report on the NDTV website said that the store was “attacked in Gujarat amid row over an advertisement that has been withdrawn after vicious trolling on social media. The report manager was reportedly made to write an apology letter by the mob”.

The official handle of NDTV also put out a tweet saying “Breaking news: Tanishq store attacked in Gandhidham, manager forced to write apology note amid row over ad”.

A Twitter user replied to this tweet with an audio recording with the store manager, saying “this is fake news”. In the audio, the purported store manager of the store is telling the user that no attack on his store has happened.

After this, NDTV changed the report on its website to say that the store was “targetted”, but not attacked. The tweet however has not yet been pulled down.

The revised report says the store was “reportedly targetted by a mob...”

It also quotes an anonymous police officer denying any attack and saying “Some people had informed the store the ad was not in good taste and had hurt sentiments, and some threat calls had been received. The police have been regularly patrolling the area. No rioting, protest or attack took place.”

The local police also denied any attack on camera. The officer who spoke to the media called the reports of the attack a “propaganda”.

The fake news of the mob attack has been amplified by several influential Twitter users, who had not pulled down their tweets until the time of publishing this report.