| New York: The body found in a river in Providence two days ago has been positively identified by the Rhode Island State Health Department on Thursday as Brown University student Sunil Tripathi, who had been missing since March. The medical examiner reportedly used dental records to identify the 22-year-old Indian American Ivy League student mistakenly linked with the Boston bombings last week. A cause of death is still to be determined but the medical examiner said no foul play was suspected. The close-knit Tripathi family posted a message on the Facebook page they'd been using to search for Sunil for the last 38 days:
Tripathi, had been missing since 16 March. He was last seen on a surveillance video that morning, not far from his apartment crossing the street near Brown's campus. Aware the 22-year-old had been suffering from depression, the Tripathi's family quickly raised an alarm, getting in touch with the police. They even uploaded a warm and fuzzy home-made video on YouTube urging "Sunny" to come home. It was traumatic for the Tripathi family when speculation suddenly started on the social news site Reddit fingering Sunil as one of the Boston bombers. Precisely how Tripathi went from being the subject of a missing person's search by a loving family to someone supposedly wanted by America for a heinous terrorist attack remains unclear. But shockingly, a dedicated thread propped up on the Reddit site called, "Is missing student Sunil Tripathi Marathon Bomber?" "The story surrounding the false identification of Sunil Tripathi is a cautionary reminder of how the pervasive reach of social media can be used for both good and bad. It is an insight, too, of how prejudice might cloud judgement and reason," noted The Independent. "With the story taking hold like wildfire, a number of people then went on to celebrate how social media had apparently found the suspect in the "white hat". It was, said some, a victory for new media over the old school. All chose to ignore the fact that police had not named Mr Tripathi as a suspect." TheAtlantic.com website blasted the irresponsible action saying that the Internet sleuths had not even bothered to check the source of the claim. It was only when NBC reporter Pete Williams said on Twitter that Sunil Tripathi was not the man wanted by police that the abuse and visceral hate directed at the Tripathis stopped. After Reddit was taken to task by the mainstream US media, Erik Martin, the general manager of Reddit, said in a web posting on Monday that the site had privately apologised to the family. "Though started with noble intentions, some of the activity on Reddit fuelled online witch hunts and dangerous speculation which spiralled into very negative consequences for innocent parties," said Martin. "The Reddit staff and the millions of people on Reddit around the world deeply regret that this happened." The Tripathi family showed tremendous grace under fire. "It's a very scary thing to be on the other side of it and see how quickly our voices got drowned out and hysteria took over," Sunil's brother Ravi Tripathi told NBC. On their Facebook page, the Tripathi family thanked everyone for their compassionate spirit. "This last month has changed our lives forever, and we hope it will change yours too. Take care of one another. Be gentle, be compassionate. Be open to letting someone in when it is you who is faltering. Lend your hand. We need it. The world needs it."  via Top Stories - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNEGnOlr59SZLn5CYfIiOzoGakIOfg&url=http://www.firstpost.com/world/sunil-tripathi-wrongly-linked-to-boston-attack-died-in-river-autopsy-report-729155.html | |||
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