advertisement
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann got married on Thursday, 7 July to Dr Gurpreet Kaur in a private ceremony at his house in Chandigarh.
Amid news of the wedding, an impostor account with the handle '@DrGurpreetKaur_' has surfaced on Twitter, claiming to be Kaur.
However, according to the web archives of the account, the handle was previously called '@SulochnaPandey' and '@IndiaUprise', before it was changed to Kaur's name.
THE CLAIM
A Twitter account with the username '@DrGurpreetKaur_' is responding to tweets about Bhagwant Mann's wedding while pretending to be Kaur.
The user is also retweeting tweets posted by Mann's official account.
A pinned tweet on the profile has the photo of a woman with a caption that states in Punjabi 'the day of wedding.'
Several news report like NDTV and Hindustan Times carried the pictures of the woman uploaded by this account, claiming that it shows Kaur.
THIS ISN'T MANN'S BRIDE, GURPREET KAUR'S ACCOUNT
We looked through the tweets and replies by '@DrGurpreetKaur_' and found a tweet from 16 March 2021, where the account had quote tweeted another tweet.
The username seen in this tweet was '@IndiaUprise.'
Taking a cue, we retrieved a web archive from an internet archiving website called Wayback Machine and found that '@DrGurpreetKaur_' was initially run as '@IndiaUprise'.
Next, we checked for a web archive of a tweet from 29 September 2018 and found that the account also used to be run with the username '@SulochnaPandey'. This archive was from May 2021.
The same tweet from September 2018 was found on '@DrGurpreetKaur_' in which the previous username '@IndiaUprise' is still visible.
We ran the handle on Tweeter ID, a website that shows the unique numerical identifier assigned to every Twitter profile. The website returned the code '948603548534685696' for this account.
Next, we checked the user ID of the archives of the account with username '@SulochnaPandey' and '@IndiaUprise'.
Both the account's user IDs matched the '@DrGurpreetKaur_' ID as '948603548534685696.'
We did not find any tweet or mention of this account on Mann's verified Twitter account.
MANN GETS MARRIED TO GURPREET KAUR
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann tied the knot with Dr Gurpreet Kaur. The wedding took place privately at his house in Chandigarh.
Visuals were shared by the attendee, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MP Raghav Chadha.
The bride, Dr Gurpreet Kaur, is a working physician and hails from Haryana's Pehowa town but has lived in Punjab.
Evidently, a fake account of Dr Gurpreet Kaur cropped up during her wedding with the Punjab CM.
(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9643651818, or e-mail it to us at webqoof@thequint.com and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)