A South African prankster falsely reported the death of actor Shah Rukh Khan in an accident because he could not spell the first name of his original choice, Hrithik Roshan. Call centre worker Aman Singh was marched off the premises a day before his earlier resignation became effective after investigations revealed his computer as the source of an email claiming that Shah Rukh had died in an accident.
Singh copied and pasted the masthead of a leading South African news website, news24.com, to make his message look authentic. Although it was crudely designed, it conned hundreds of fans who hurriedly passed on the message to others. In the email, Singh claimed that Shah Rukh had been killed in a road accident when his car hit a tree, and that this had been confirmed by the actor’s manager.
The email sparked frantic calls to media in South Africa and even to India, where Shah Rukh was busy filming for his next film, Don. News24.com quickly traced the source of the email to Aman Singh after the website was inundated with queries about the story. Singh tendered apologies after both his employer and news24.com called for strong action, saying that he had merely intended the story as a prank to be played on his cousins, who are ardent fans of both Hrithik Roshan and Shah Rukh Khan.
SA prankster puts up ‘news’ of SRK’s death
