Army Chief Manoj Pande's Photo With Mohan Bhagwat, Nitin Gadkari is Edited

The photo is fake. All these pictures are from different events.

A photo of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat, union minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Nitin Gadkari, and Chief of the Army Staff Manoj Pande is being shared on social media to claim that the army chief met them at the RSS headquarters in Nagpur.

However, we found that the photo is fake. All these pictures have been taken from different events/meetings the three have had individually.

• Mohan Bhagwat's image is from 2016 when he met Uddhav Thackeray and his son Aditya Thackeray in Nagpur.

• Nitin Gadkari's photo was taken from when he had met Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) Chief Raj Thackeray in Mumbai.

• Manoj Pande's photo has been taken from a news article about his childhood friends sharing their memories after he became the army head.

CLAIM

The photo is being shared along with a claim that reads, "What is Army General Manoj Pandey doing here with Mohan Bhagwat? (sic)"

The text in the image in Hindi translates to, 'Mohan Bhagwat, General Manoj Pande and Nitin Gadkari met at RSS headquarters in Nagpur'.

More archived links on Facebook and Twitter can be seen here, here, and here.

WHAT WE FOUND

We found that the picture has been created using different pictures of the trio from different events. Let's take a look at them one by one.

RSS CHIEF MOHAN BHAGWAT'S IMAGE

We conducted a reverse image search on the photo and a Google search led us to a 2016 article from India Today.

In the photo, the RSS chief can be seen along with Uddhav Thackeray and his son Aditya Thackeray.

The article was published on 5 December 2016 and it read that the Shiv Sena chief was in Maharashtra's Nagpur to attend Gadkari's daughter's wedding, when he dropped by at the RSS headquarters to meet Mohan Bhagwat.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of the two images. The door and the room seen on the background of Mohan Bhagwat from the 2016 image can also be seen in the viral image.

UNION MINISTER NITIN GADKARI'S IMAGE

Next, we isolated the image of Nitin Gadkari and conducted a reverse image search on it.

A Google reverse image search led us to a tweet from news agency ANI published on 4 April.

The caption read that the Gadkari had met MNS chief Raj Thackeray at his residence in Mumbai.

The image of the BJP leader at the meeting with Raj Thackeray and family can be clearly seen being photoshopped and added to the viral image.

CHIEF OF ARMY STAFF MANOJ PANDE'S IMAGE

We then cropped the image of Manoj Pande and conducted a reverse image search on it.

A Google reverse image along with keyword search led us to an article published by ETV Bharat Maharashtra.

The article was published on 19 April and read that a friend of Pande named Dilip Athle reminisced about their childhood memories, after Pande became the new Army chief.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of the two photos. The photo from the ETV Bharat article has been used in the viral image.

Further, there are no reports on the Army chief meeting Bhagwat and Gadkari.

Clearly, an edited photo is being shared falsely claiming that the new chief of army staff had met Mohan Bhagwat and Nitin Gadkari in Nagpur.

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