Several social media users including various leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) shared an image of a hoarding claiming to show Delhi government's advertisement of dustbins being installed at the Kirtinagar industrial area.
However, we found several discrepancies in the viral image that showed that it was a morphed version of the original one.
CLAIM
The image was shared by various BJP leaders taking a dig at the Kejriwal-led AAP government. BJP Delhi MP Parvesh Sahib Singh in a tweet originally in Hindi wrote, 'I am at a loss of words'.
You can view the archived version here.
(Source: Twitter/ Screenshot)
Other BJP leaders who shared the viral image include Naveen Kumar Jindal, Shalabh Mani Tripathi, Ravinder Gupta with Kapil Mishra and Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga quote-tweeting posts carrying the image.
Ashok Basoya, additional advocate general of Chhattisgarh at Supreme Court, too, shared the viral image taking a dig at Dehli Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
The image has been massively shared on Facebook and the archived version of the posts can be viewed here, here, and here.
The image is viral on Facebook.
(Source: Facebook/ Screenshot)
WHAT WE FOUND
On carefully looking at the viral hoarding, we found two different shades of blue and a part of the original hoarding over which the viral text could have been superimposed.
The highlighted portion in red shows the different shades of blue in the hoarding.
(Photo: Altered by The Quint)
Fact-checking website SM Hoax Slayer came across a clearer version of the viral image, in which we noticed that the word 'Ho' in Hindi didn't show any change in its colour, which it ideally should have because of the reflection of light, had it been an authentic hoarding.
The word 'Ho' does not show any change in colour due to light's reflection.
(Photo: Altered by The Quint)
Further, the text in white is oddly sharp as compared to that of Delhi Government's logo seen on the right.
The sharpness of text is different in the title in Hindi and Delhi government's logo.
(Photo: Altered by The Quint)
We further performed digital forensics on the viral image using an online tool called 'fotoforensics' and the Error Level Analysis (ELA) of the image showed the different elements that weren't a part of the original one.
ELA helps to identify parts of an image that have a different level of compression.
The ELA showed that the text in Hindi did not feature in the original image.
(Source: Website/ Screenshot)
As one can see, the ELA result showed that the text in Hindi in the viral hoarding is not present in the original one.
Additionally, we came across a tweet where a user shared an image of Delhi government's advertisement on a scheme providing financial assistance to families of those who succumbed to COVID, suggesting that the original image showed this ad.
However, we haven't been able to independently verify the same.
While we haven't been able to find the original image, multiple discrepancies as mentioned above, show that the viral hoarding is morphed.
(With inputs from SM Hoax Slayer)
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