Social media users on Thursday called out cafe chain Chaayos for “liking” Islamophobic tweets through its official handle. The founder of the company claimed that the account had been hacked.

Several social media users posted screenshots on Thursday that showed Islamophobic tweets under the “likes” tab on the official handle of Chaayos. One of the tweets compared Muslims to snakes, while another claimed that there was “nothing like moderate Islam”.

As the outrage grew, Chaayos said that an “offensive tweet” had been inadvertently liked from its account. However, there were multiple Islamophobic tweets that the handle had liked.

In a series of tweets on Thursday evening, Chaayos apologised and said that it would take corrective action after an investigation.

Hours later, Chaayos founder Nitin Saluja claimed that the account had been hacked for about half an hour and the offensive posts were liked during that period. He apologised for the social media activity from the company’s account.

“I want to personally [assure] everyone that as a founder and as an organisation, we respect all faiths equally,” he wrote in a tweet.

However, at least one social media user refused to buy into the clarification and posted screenshots that showed that the social media activity spanned over a month.

“Dear Nitin, are you telling us ‘half an hour’ started on 2nd May and ended on 4th June?” the user wrote on Twitter. “Which timezone is this buddy?”