A body found in river has been identified as Brown University student Sunil Tripathi who was falsely linked to Boston bombings on Reddit. Images courtesy Facebook Before the tragic death of missing student Sunil Tripathi, his family and friends made this touching video. Redditors, who had already been posting theories about potential suspects, identified a likeness between Sunil Tripathi and the picture now known to be of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The Tripathi theory spread quickly on the forum and on Twitter, and eventually was picked up by some major media organisations. Mother Jones reports that during hours of intense speculation, Tripathi's family was inundated with calls, Facebook posts and harassing emails, until news broke that the brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had been officially identified as primary suspects. The moderator of the "FindBostonBombers" page on Reddit released a statement apologising: "This event shows exactly why the no personal information until confirmation rule is in place. Out of respect for Tripathi and his family, I ask that users here please remove any and all links about him. Before Sunil's body was found his sister Sangeeta Tripathi told Mother Jones: "The hardest part of this was how far from any actual evidence there actually was, and how quickly and how painfully this travelled...We find it incredibly unfortunate that media outlets were so quick to jump without checking with authorities, but we hope they use the same energy and intensity they showed in the past 24 hours to really help us find Sunil." On a thread on Reddit today users are debating the level of responsibility the site should take for the wrong identification. Many users are contrite about the blame laid on Sunil and the pain this caused his family. "The problem was that [Reddit users] didn't know that they were not professionals or detectives, and did something dumb thinking they were which just made more people suffer," posted user NoodlesRlife. People should leave s*** like that to the professionals, just cause your om [sic] the Internet doesn't mean you can do anything without consequences. Meanwhile doomsday_pancakes posted: "This community as a whole needs to learn from this experience and stop blaming others. As red_is_blue said: your actions have consequences. Since we have anonymous accounts just to protect our identities, we must keep in mind that we're in a position of priviledge [sic] where whatever we say can be amplified but without any consequences for the writer. Another user posted information about a Sunil Tripathi memorial fund encouraging others to donate. "I think it would be a nice gesture for Redditers to collectively kick in, given all the negative attention Sunil received here," user bill tanner posted. Considering the fact that reddit added to this family's personal grief. I think that would be a good idea," posted Deathbylamp. Relatives of Tripathi, who was from Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, had been searching for him with help from the FBI and Brown students since mid-March.