MUMBAI:  One Direction's Liam Payne was slammed by fans after he made a joke about bandmate Zayn Malik's absence on Twitter.

The One Direction hunk jokingly hid his bandmate's face with his hand on the printed board as he, Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles and Niall Horan posed for a photograph with some fans, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

Uploading the image on his Twitter account, Liam, 21, wrote: "#makinglightofasituation sorry for the laughs guys (sic)."

Although some fans didn't see the funny side of the post, with one - Gorgia Rose – writing, "How dare you cover Zayn's face? Don't f**king do it again."

Another fan, Ana Evans added, "@Real_Liam_Payne what the????? Why you covering zayn;s face? Am sorry but I cant c da humour in making joke of a frnd's absence due 2 stress." (sic)

However, the backlash did not stop there as Liam found himself in hot water once again when he made a joke about Justin Bieber.

One user arianasmccann wrote: "@Real_Liam_Payne Isn't it kinda depressing for you to know that Justin Bieber will always be more successful than you?"

To which Liam hit back with a comment about Justin's criminal record, saying: "How many times have I been arrested?"

The British singer did not apologise for his actions, but did try and brush off the situation by later tweeting, "Never mind" and "banter."

Meanwhile, Zayn, 22, who is meant to be on tour with his band in Asia, was signed off with stress and urged to fly back to the UK to recover following allegations he cheated on his fiancée Perrie Edwards with a mystery blonde in Thailand last week.

It is believed the star will rejoin the group at the weekend for the start of the South Africa leg of their ‘On The Road Again' tour.