A screenshot of a Facebook post purportedly made by West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee's aide Arpita Mukherjee, has gone viral on the internet. People sharing the post claimed that Mukherjee wished people on 'Guru Purnima' using Chatterjee's photograph. The claim was also shared by Zee News' Bengali language channel, Zee 24 Ghanta.
The posts come shortly after Chatterjee was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on 23 July in connection with the alleged irregularities in the recruitment of teachers, clerks, and staff in the state-run schools. On the day of his arrest, Rs 21 crore in cash were recovered from the residence of Mukherjee, considered to be a close aide of Chatterjee.
However, we found that the post was a morphed one. Mukherjee's original post on the occasion of Guru Purnima didn't have Chatterjee's photograph in it.
CLAIM
Zee 24 Ghanta put out the photo as a news article and a video report on YouTube. The headline of the piece when translated from Bengali said, "Guru has taught lessons for life, post by Arpita for Partha on the occasion of Guru Purnima."
The edited photograph was shared by Bharatiya Janata Party leader Agnimitra Paul and Communist Party of India (Marxist) youth leader Shatarup Ghosh on Facebook, with sarcastic comments.
The post was shared by several other social media users on Facebook – archives of some can be found here and here.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We looked for Mukherjee's original Facebook post and found the post from 13 July. However, in the post for Guru Purnima, she didn't have Chatterjee's photo in it.
The post carried had the photograph of a palm and a caption that when translated from Bengali read, "Not just how to read, gurus have also taught worldly knowledge. You can cross seas if you imbibe the learnings from your teacher. Happy Guru Purnima."
The image that Mukherjee used was a stock photograph. We conducted a reverse image search of the image and found the photograph on Adobe stock photos website.
We compared the viral screenshot with the original post and noticed other errors in the viral image.
Evidently, a morphed photograph was shared by several social media users to claim that Mukherjee wished Chatterjee on Guru Purnima.
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