Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri tweeted a clarification on Wednesday after an old image of a “poorly translated” airport sign resumed circling the internet, flagging it as fake. “Listen folks. It’s a metamorphosed image that has been circulating since 2015,” Mr Puri tweeted, sharing photos of the panel in question. He further said that the Airports Authority of India (AAI) also released a clarification on the transformed sign in 2019, when it resurfaced on social media.

“Farsh by khaana sakht mana hai,“The sign reads in Hindi, which translates to” It is strictly forbidden to eat on the ground. “On the sign, however, the translation reads:” Eating carpet is strictly prohibited, “with the word” on “missing.

Aviation Minister’s recent clarification on the panel came after the image was shared by a Twitter user this week, who suggested that the IAA needed congressional chief Shashi Tharoor’s help to correct the language of the panel.

In response to the now deleted tweet, Mr Tharoor said: “They are incorrigible” – as shown in a screenshot shared by Mr Puri.

“Let’s all do a little due diligence before we publish such things,” the aviation minister urged in his tweet. “False images and transformed images do no good for the people who post them.”

Listen to the people.
This is a morphed image that has been circulating since 2015.
It resurfaced in 2019. AAI had already reported it at the time.

Let’s all do a little due diligence before posting such things.
Fake images and transformed images do no good to the people who post them. pic.twitter.com/JLKkyT5Fcm

– Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) June 9, 2021

According to the information site UPI, the sign was actually photographed in 2015 by businessman Justin Ross Lee, who shared it on Facebook. According to his post, the photo was taken at Chennai International Airport.

In 2019, actress Shabana Azmi also shared a photo of the airport sign on Instagram, after which the IAA flagged it as fake. “Since 2015, this morphed image shown has toured time and time again. Calling on everyone not to release such photographs without proper fact-checking,” the Airports Authority of India said in its tweet to the time.

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