CLAIM
A video of Ramnath Goenka award-winning journalist Abhisar Sharma has been going viral, which claims to show him handing out bribes to villagers in exchange for them speaking against the government.
The clip shows him speaking to villagers, asking them about whether they are happy with the Narendra Modi government. They tell him about their complaints, saying that Yogi Adityanath and Narendra Modi have not solved their problems regarding agriculture. They also point out the dirty river running through their village.
In the clip, Sharma hands something small to the villager whom he first spoke to in the video. The video highlights that with a black circle, and over the entire video is a box with the words: 'Abhishar Sharma - Distributing $ to villagers to speak in his favour?'
The edited video insinuates that what Sharma hands to the villager is money, a bribe for them to speak against Modi and Adityanath.
The clip was originally shared by a Twitter user by the name of Chowkidar શિવમ, which has now been deleted. Another Twitter user called Shashank Singh shared it with the false claim, but that has also been taken down.
Many other people on Twitter shared the video with this narrative, that Sharma was paying the villagers.
Major Surendra Poonia also shared the video, questioning what Sharma was giving the villager.
The video shared by Major Poonia alone had over 21K views.
TRUE OR FALSE?
The clip being shared is also a part of a larger video, which has been snipped and edited to give the appearance that Sharma is bribing the villager. The journalist himself shared the complete video after the clip went viral, in which it is clear that the villager had handed him a newspaper clipping, which he later then hands back, which is the part being misinterpreted.
The video shared by Sharma zooms in and highlights the fact that what he gives to the villager is a newspaper clipping.
Sharma also responded to Singh on Twitter, threatening to file a police complaint against him for defamation.
Singh has now taken down his tweet and issued an apology.
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