Morphed Photo of Hoarding Shared as Dainik Bhaskar Targeting BJP

We found that the viral image had been morphed over an old hoarding and shared with the viral claim.

An image of a hoarding showing Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar taking a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) and at the Centre has gone viral on social media.

This comes two days after the Income Tax department conducted searches on the premises of Dainik Bhaskar Group office across India for alleged tax evasion. The daily put out a story and social media posts claiming that the raids were a retaliation against their coverage during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in which they were critical of the Centre and the UP government.

However, we found that the viral image was not shared by the Dainik Bhaskar group. The viral image was originally shared as a joke on a Facebook page created to mock the UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and was later shared by other social media users as a real hoarding. We also found that the viral image was morphed.

CLAIM

The viral photo had a text in it written in Hindi that read, "ना मठ का महंत ना फेंकू संत". [Translation: Neither a monk, nor a lying saint.]

This was followed by a text that said, "अब चलेगा केवल सच यूपी में खबरें न दबेंगी, न रुकेगी".[Translation: Only truth shall prevail, the news will not be suppressed nor stopped in UP.]

This viral photo was shared with a caption that said, "'दमनकारी सरकार' ने 'दैनिक भाष्कर' की आवाज़ दबाने की कोशिश की, फिर जो दैनिक भाष्कर ने किया वह आपके सामने है". [Translation: The 'oppressive government' tried to thwart Dainik Bhaskar's voice, what Dainik Bhaskar did after is in front of you.]

It is important to note that CM Yogi Adityanath is the head priest (mahant) of the Gorakhnath Math in Gorakhpur.

The same photo was shared by several Facebook and Twitter users, including an MLA from Samajwadi Party Ambrish Singh Pushkar.

More posts with the same viral image can be found archived here, here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We look on Dainik Bhaskar's website and social media handles for photos of the hoarding but could not find it there. We could also not find any news report talking about the hoarding.

Upon observing the photo closely, we saw the text "@YogiJhoothaHai" and a logo on the bottom left corner with the same text with an animated photo of UP CM Yogi Adityanath.

We found a Facebook page by the same name and the viral photograph was posted on the page on 22 July.

The post had a Hindi caption, which when transalted to English reads, "The oppressive government tried to thwart Dainik Bhaskar's voice, what Dainik Bhaskar would want to do after that is in front of you". The caption suggests that the hoarding was not real.

However, the caption used by the Facebook page was edited by other social media users who shared the image later. The caption was altered from "what Dainik Bhaskar would want to do after that is in front of you" to "what Dainik Bhaskar did after is it in front of you".

We conducted a reverse image search after cropping the viral image and we found the original image in a news article published in News Nation and ThePrint in January 2020.

According to the News Nation article, the poster was put up by a BJP member called Deepak Madan. The poster said, "Desh Mange Narendra Modi, Delhi Mange Kejriwal". [Translation: The country wants Narendra Modi and Delhi wants Kejriwal.]

On comparing the two hoardings, we found several similarities that proved that the viral photo was morphed.

We conducted a reverse image search on the cropped hoarding and we found that photos posted by social media users that said similar hoardings were put up by Dainik Bhaskar in 2017, talking about all the parties who were in the fray for the 2017 UP Assembly Elections. A 2017 post from Sabrang India also had an image of the hoardings put by the Dainik Bhaskar group.

Evidently, the photograph of an old hoarding was morphed and shared as Dainik Bhaskar's hoarding targeting the BJP government.

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