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.
Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.
Claim
A BJP member gropes a woman colleague during a rally.
The archived version of the tweet can be seen here.
Fact
Newschecker ran a reverse image search of keyframes of the video, which led us to this Youtube video, dated May 16, 2007, headlined, “Sherry Rehman, Yousaf Raza Gilani, PPP Rally”. A similar video can be seen here, confirming that it is not related to the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Taking a cue from this, we ran a relevant keyword search, which led us to this Guardian feature on protests in Pakistan, dated September 5, 2008, which references to “prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s infamous apparent grope of information minister Sherry Rehman in a political rally last year.” Similar write-ups mentioning the incident can be seen here and here, further confirming that the video is not of a recent election-related incident from India.
Also Read: Old Video Of Pakistani Woman Being Groped Falsely Shared As Sexual Harassment In BJP March
Result: False
Source
Youtube video, May 16, 2007
The Guardian report, September 5, 2008
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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.
Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.
