See the face of Sunil Tripathi wrongly alleged as Boston bomber died mysteriously

Boston bombings: Sunil Tripathi found dead

The man who was wrongly identified on social media as the perpetrator of the Boston bombings has been found dead in a park.

SuSunil Tripathi, 22, an Indian American studying philosophy at Brown University, was last seen on March 16 near his student flat.A Brown University rowing coach found a body floating in the water of a park on Tuesday, in the town of Providence, Rhode Island. Police said it was "very, very possible" that the body was that of Mr Tripathi, but it was finally confirmed by the state medical examiner on Thursday.His cause of death has not n the rush to be the first to name the Boston bombers, the Reddit website mistakenly claimed that Mr Tripathi had carried out the bombings, after an acquaintance of his said the photo issued by the FBI of terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev could be that of the missing student.The name of Mr Tripathi, who last year suspended his studies and had been suffering from depression, was soon trending worldwide.His sister Sangeeta said that Reddit is "one of the more ugly and disgusting places that had a lot of traffic" relating to her brother.

"Someone will tweet, then retweet, and completely unsubstantiated things can proliferate so rapidly and destructively,'' Miss Tripathi told Reuters. "Those night hours were horrible."

Erik Martin, Reddit's general manager, said that he had written to the family offering an apology.

"We have apologised privately to the family of (the) missing college student, as have various users and moderators," he wrote in a post to the site's official blog. "We want to take this opportunity to apologise publicly for the pain they have had to endure."

The Tripathi family, from Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania, said that they feel "indescribable grief" at the identification of Sunil's body, but were grateful for the support they had received.