BJP Leader Falsely Identified as Hathras Rape Accused’s Father

Video Editor: Ashutosh Bhardwaj

A set of images are being circulated on social media with the claim that they show father of Sandeep, who is an accused in the alleged gang rape of the 19-year-old Dalit woman in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras, with state Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

However, we found that the man in the image is Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha leader Dr Shyam Prakash Dwivedi, who is not the father of the accused in the Hathras incident.

CLAIM

Twitter user @JagdishMulniwa1 shared the images with the claim: “हाथरस की बेटी ***** के आरोपी सन्दीप के पिता की कुछ यादगार तस्वीर सब कुछ बयां कर देती है” (Translated: Memorable images of father of accused Sandeep in the case of Hathras’ daughter ***** tell everything)

The used later took down the tweet.

Several social media users shared the images with the same claim on Twitter and Facebook.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

The Quint had earlier reported that a man called Ramkumar, his brother Ravi, their nephew Sandeep and their neighbour Luvkush were named by the victim before succumbing to her injuries at Delhi’s Safdarjung hospital.

Speaking to The Quint, a member of the Hathras victim’s family confirmed that the man in the images is not Sandeep’s father. We also got in touch with the reporters on the ground who confirmed to us that the man in the picture is not Sandeep’s father.

We then did a Google reverse image search on one of the images to identify the man. This search led us to an article that identified him as BJP’s Dr Shyam Prakash Dwivedi.

Further, we scrolled through the social media handles of the BJP leader and found all the three viral images on the accounts.

More than one account exists in the name of the said leader on Facebook. The Quint has not independently verified the accounts.

Here’s a comparison of the viral images with the ones shared by the accounts of the BJP leader in the years 2019 and 2017.

An article published in News18 Hindi in September mentioned that the leader who is the regional head of Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha from Prayagraj is an accused in an another alleged gang rape of a student.

The article mentioned that the incident is a year old and the Prayagraj Police registered a case against the BJP leader and other accused in September.

While scrolling through the social media profiles, we found several campaign posters that mentioned the leader as being based out of Prayagraj. We also came across a letter head signed by the BJP leader that mentioned his residential address and the city named in it is Allahabad (now Prayagraj).

Evidently, the images of a BJP leader with Yogi Adityanath and PM Narendra Modi are being circulated with the false claim that he is father of Sandeep, who is one of the accused in the Hathras incident.

(Editor’s Note: The name of the victim has been blurred from all the posts to conceal her identity.)

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