Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
Several Twitter users are circulating pictures of a frothing Yamuna river, claiming it to be the sacred water body’s current situation during Chhath puja, which was from October 28 to October 31. Users are using the pictures to take aim at Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, in view of the upcoming Gujarat elections as well as the political row regarding pollution in the Yamuna river.
The archived versions of the tweets can be seen here, here, here and here
Fact check
Newschecker first ran a reverse image search of the Yamuna river picture from @rishibagree’s tweet, which led us to an Indian Express report, dated September 26, 2018. It is the same photo from the tweet, which has been captioned, “Formation of froth in the Yamuna, at Okhla Barrage, Pollution at Yamuna in New Delhi on Monday, September 24, 2018.” The photo was credited to Abhinav Saha. “River Yamuna is overflowing with bubbling thick foam and filth. Appearing like snow, the toxic froth is full of residential and industrial waste whose foul stench could be smelt from a distance,” the report read. The photo has been reused by Indian Express in multiple news reports seen here and here.
We then ran a reverse image search of the photo tweeted by @Nadeem_092, which led us to the same photo published, as well as tweeted, by several media outlets in the first week of November in 2019. According to an Economic Times report, dated November 4, 2019,
“…thousands of devotees offered prayers along the banks of the Yamuna river to mark the end of Chhath Puja. Early Sunday morning, men in dhoti and women in saree stepped into the river water with toxic, white foam floating on the surface of the polluted water.” We learnt from these reports that the photo was originally clicked by PTI.
We have reached out to Saha and PTI, regarding the two photos, and will update this article once their responses are received.
Conclusion
Photos of a heavily polluted Yamuna river taken from 2018 and 2019 being falsely circulated as images of the river in 2022.
Result: Missing context
Sources
Indian Express report, September 26, 2018
Economic Times report, November 4, 2019
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Authors
Kushel HM is a mechanical engineer-turned-journalist, who loves all things football, tennis and films. He was with the news desk at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, before joining Newschecker.
