BBC apologizes for Shashi Kapoor goof-up

The BBC has apologized after showing two clips of the wrong person while reporting the death of yesteryear Hindi film star Shashi Kapoor.

On Monday's News at Ten, two video clips were played as presenter Huw Edwards announced the death of the 79-year-old actor, who died the same day in Mumbai at 5.20pm local time. But neither of the men shown was Kapoor. One was his nephew Rishi Kapoor and the other was long-time co-actor Amitabh Bachchan, a BBC report accepted on Tuesday.

The programme's editor Paul Royall apologized on Twitter on Tuesday for the mistake hours after the bulletin was aired.

"BBC News at Ten is very sorry wrong images were used to mark the death of Shashi Kapoor. Not our usual standards and I apologize for any upset."

But the error was criticized by some of the corporation's own stars on social media. Adil Ray, creator and co-writer of BBC One's Citizen Khan, tweeted: "Someone at the BBC thought the brown person in this VT is the same person.

"Worse still, neither of them is the deceased actor Huw refers to. It's poor when it would have taken them seconds to verify. Not enough care."

Aasmah Mir, who presents Saturday Live on BBC Radio 4, said she was "really annoyed" by the error.

In a statement, the BBC said: "BBC News at Ten is very sorry the wrong images were used to mark the death of Shashi Kapoor. The piece did not meet its usual standards and the programme has apologized for any upset."

An Indian television news channel too mistakenly tweeted the demise of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor while reporting Kapoor's death on Monday. They, too, later apologized.