Authors
Vaibhav is a part of Newschecker’s English team, where he spots and debunks all kinds of misinformation, making the rounds on the internet. A Journalism graduate from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, he holds an M.A degree in Philosophy and an M.Phil from Delhi University.
After BJP workers clashed with the police outside Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s residence and vandalised the gate of this house along with raising slogans, an image showing ‘The Kashmir Files’ painted across the gate in saffron hues is being widely shared on social media. Users are claiming this to be a photograph of the gate of Arvind Kejriwal’s residence. Newschecker has found this claim to be false.
The image, shared on Twitter by famous film director Vivek Agnihotri along with the caption ‘Can you guess whose gate is this? Not a झूठी कहानी।’, had garnered 51,900 likes and 9,190 retweets at last count.
Newschecker found similar claims on Twitter and Facebook with different captions.
In 2020, a parliamentary standing committee on home affairs had estimated the number of Hindu families that had migrated from Kashmir to be 60,489. The release of Agnihotri’s film, The Kashmir Files, based on video interviews on the Kashmiri Pandit exodus from the valley in 1990, has set social media platforms on fire with many false claims also doing the rounds.
The movie has already been declared tax free in several states including UP, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Chandigarh and Himachal Pradesh.
Demands made to make the film tax-free in the national capital were denied by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal who clarified in the Delhi assembly that “some people were earning crores” by exploiting the suffering of Kashmiri Pandits, while BJP leaders had been “reduced” to putting up posters of the movie.
Also read: No, Rana Ayyub Didn’t Link Will Smith Slapping Chris Rock To Hinduism, Viral Article Is A Satire
Fact Check/ Verification
Newschecker conducted a Google reverse image search on the viral images to ascertain its authenticity but could not find any media reports on the incident.
Upon conducting a keyword search using “Kejriwal”, “gate”, “vandalised”, Newschecker found several media reports on the vandalised gate. One of the videos posted on Twitter by news channel Times Now on 30th March, 2022 said ‘#WATCH | Gate at the residence of Delhi CM @ArvindKejriwal painted saffron by @BJYM workers in protest of Arvind Kejriwal’s statement on Kashmir Files.’
On analysing the video we find that while the gate was painted saffron no text could be seen on it.
Newschecker also found a tweet by Rajya Sabha MP, Raghav Chadha who shared images of the CM’s residence after the protest along with the caption ‘The attack on Honorable Chief Minister @arvindkejriwal ji’s residence by BJP goons is highly condemnable. In the presence of police, these goons broke barricades, broke CCTV cameras. In the fury of Punjab’s defeat, the BJP got down to such poor politics.’
The image of the gate shared by AAP member Raghav Chadha also shows saffron paint on the gate but no text can be seen on it .
Upon further investigation, Newschecker found a tweet by a verified handle of Twitter user @AdvAshutoshBJP who stated that he had morphed the image of the gate.
The archived version of this tweet can be seen here.
The tweet was shared along with the caption ‘I am getting abuses & threats since yesterday, ever since I have edited “The Kashmir files” at the painted gate, I am being asked to delete my post. They are saying to give up as lawyers & do slavery to the BJP. Means the target has been hit in the right place, Burnol moment!’
Advocate Ashutosh Dubey is the Legal Advisor Of BJP-Maharashtra Palghar District and a Practising Advocate at Bombay High Court according to his Twitter handle.
Conclusion
According to the investigation conducted by Newschecker, an edited image of the gate of Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s residence with the ‘The Kashmir Files’ painted across it is being passed off as real.
Result: Manipulated/Altered media
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Authors
Vaibhav is a part of Newschecker’s English team, where he spots and debunks all kinds of misinformation, making the rounds on the internet. A Journalism graduate from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, he holds an M.A degree in Philosophy and an M.Phil from Delhi University.
