TV channel Times Now issued a corrigendum on Saturday apologising for referring to Kerala as Pakistan in one of their reports on Friday. While reporting on the beef ban row and BJP President Amit Shah’s subsequent three-day visit to Kerala on Friday, the channel had run a headline saying Shah “Heads to Thundery Pakistan”.
A hashtag campaign criticising Times Now quickly gained momentum on social media, calling the channel “Times Cow”. The purported error was especially glaring given that Kerala has been at the forefront of protests against the Centre’s new cow slaughter rules.
The corrigendum said:
Times Now regrets an inadvertent error reported on the channel on June 2, 2017, regarding Amit Shah’s visit to Kerala. Instead of Kerala, the word Pakistan was inadvertently typed. Times Now once again regrets the error which may have hurt sentiments.
Shah’s visit to the state came after the centre issued a notification banning the sale and purchase of cattle for slaughter at animal markets. Almost all political parties, except the BJP, had organised beef festivals all over Kerala in the aftermath of the notification, saying the Centre could not tell them what to eat.
On May 26, the Centre had issued new rules that require cattle traders to give an undertaking that the animals being sold at markets would only be used for agricultural purposes. Several states had massively criticised the notification, including Kerala, West Bengal and Arunachal Pradesh, among others. Madras High Court on Tuesday had stayed the notification for four weeks and asked the Centre to reply to its order.
Here is a screenshot of the incorrect headline:
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