Dubai: Photos of Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma's daughter Vamika went viral on social media on Sunday after the live broadcast camera panned towards the actress during the third ODI between India and South Africa at Cape Town on Sunday. Within moments, images of the one-year-old nestled in her mother's arms were shared widely on social media.
Given how protective Kohli and Sharma have been of Vamika's privacy, fans were outraged and slammed the broadcaster at what they viewed as a breach of privacy.
On Instagram Stories, Anushka wrote, “Hi guys! We realise that our daughter's images were captured at the stadium yesterday and widely shared thereafter. We want to inform everyone that we were caught off-guard and didn't know that the camera was on us. Our stance and request on the matter stays the same. We would really appreciate if Vamika's images are not clicked/published for reasons we have explained earlier." Virat shared the same note on his Instagram Stories.
This was the first time that Vamika's photos were seen anywhere, and immediately the images started doing the rounds on social media. The live broadcast revealed Sharma with Vamika in her arms cheering on Kohli as he hit his half-century. Sharma claimed that she was not aware of the camera zooming in on them.
Earlier, Kohli and Sharma had urged the media to not click Vamika's pictures to maintain the couple's privacy. Meanwhile, die-hard fans of the star couple have slammed the broadcasters, and have been demanding fan pages and other accounts to delete the posts.
"Well, honestly it was terrible thing of them to do that by not respecting the privacy they needed!" a fan wrote.
"Plz respect their privacy and delete this," "Stop sharing dude," "Plz don't do that hide her face then share it," tweeted other fans.
Kohli and Sharma welcomed Vamika last year, and the couple declined to reveal her images, requesting the paparazzi to refrain from photographing her, and sending a thank-you card to the paparazzi for not publishing her photos.
In a statement in December last year, Sharma and Kohli requested paparazzi for privacy. They said: “We seek privacy for our child and would like to do our best to give her a chance to live her life freely away from media and social media. As she is older, we cannot restrict her movement and hence your support is needed so kindly practice (refrain) in the matter. A special thank you to fan clubs and people of the internet for going out of your way to not post images. It was kind and highly mature of you."
Kohli, who recently resigned as the captain of Indian cricket team, dedicated his half-century to Vamika.
