An Indian restaurant in the United Kingdom became victim of a fake report on a prank news site claiming it serves ‘human meat’.
The report went viral on Facebook forcing the owner to say that the 60-year-old eatery could shut down because of this fake report.
Shinra Begum, the owner of ‘KarriTwist’ in south east London, said people have threatened to vandalise the building and police officers have been called in.
However, the article originated from a prank news site where anonymous users can submit their own fake news before sharing the stories on social media, metro.co.uk reported on Wednesday.
“One person said he would have broken the windows if our shutters weren’t up. One member of the public did report it to the police. It has greatly affected our business. We have had people call us up telling us how dare you serve us human meat. If it wasn’t happening to me I would laugh about it,” Shinra said.
“This has done the rounds everywhere and people are believing this. We have had it for 60 years and it could shut down after somebody wrote something like this,” she said.
“Even though the article, consisting of just a single paragraph, was littered with spelling and grammatical errors, people believed it was true,” Shinra added.
It was shared on Facebook with the headline: ‘ASIAN RESTAURANT SHUT DOWN FOR USING HUMAN MEAT.’
The story read: “Last night Indian restaurant owner Rarjan Patel was arrested for using human meat in his food recipes at his New Cross Restaurant, it is said that a total of 9 human body’s were found frozen ready to be processed for meat, Rarjan Patel remains in custody for further questioning whilst the restaurant has been closed down.”
The prank news site contains a number of fake stories, including false reports claiming people have died and that certain individuals are paedophiles.
Shinra said she has seen a drop in customers since the story showing up. As a result of the restaurant being less busy, some staff have had their hours cut.
(With PTI inputs)
