Water becomes alcohol: Taslima Nasreen tweets photoshopped image, gets trolled

Writer Taslima Nasreen’s tweet on December 6 shows an elderly Muslim man wearing a skull cap pouring what appears to be whisky into a plastic cup held by another man in saffron robes.

india Updated: Dec 08, 2017 16:53 IST
Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen is living in Delhi in self-exile for the past five years.
Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen is living in Delhi in self-exile for the past five years.(HT file)

Author Taslima Nasreen was criticised on social media on Friday after several fake news-busting websites pointed out she had tweeted a poorly photoshopped image of a Muslim man purportedly serving liquor to a man in saffron robes.

The image, which shows an elderly Muslim man wearing a skull cap pouring what appears to be liquor into a plastic cup held by the man in saffron robes was tweeted by Nasreen on December 6.

The image appeared to be an obvious fake as the liquid in the cup is clear, and markedly different from the amber colour of the whisky. There was no text in the tweet, which has not been deleted by the Bangladeshi author.

Social Media Hoax Slayer, a website that closely tracks fake news items, first pointed out that the image was photoshopped in a post titled: “Taslima Nasreen tried her hands on Photoshop, changed water to alcohol.”

The website also posted the original image, which showed the Muslim man offering the other man some water from a plastic bottle bearing the Kinley logo.

BoomLive, another website that tracks fake news, said in a post that Nasreen had “performed a miracle of sorts (by) turning water into booze”

Author and columnist Salil Tripathi joked in a tweet: “Is there any doubt that maybe she’s divine?”

This is not the first time Nasreen, who has been living in Delhi in self-exile for the past five years, has stirred a controversy with her tweets. Hours after the worst mass shooting in US history – the killing of 58 people by white gunman Stephen Paddock in Las Vegas on October 1 – she had tweeted: “Most probably it is a Muslim terrorist inspired by the ISIS. It’s the reason why ppl hate Muslims.”

Screengrab of a tweet that was subsequently deleted by author Taslima Nasreen. (Twitter screengrab)

Nasreen subsequently deleted the tweet after a barrage of criticism.