A video of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, in which he can be seen abusing an ANI cameraperson, has gone viral on social media with a false claim that the video is edited. The video was shot minutes after Adityanath received his COVID vaccine on Monday, 5 April.
However, the video, which was first tweeted by ANI and later retracted, was neither fake nor edited. The same footage was aired by a few TV channels. However, those clips, barring a few, have also been taken down.
CLAIM
The video, along with a fresh footage, in which the chief minister can be seen thanking Prime Minister Narendra Modi and scientists, was then shared on Twitter by many, claiming that the initial video was “morphed”.
Among those who came out in support of the chief minister were journalist Deepak Chaurasia, political analyst Shehzad Jai Hind, Twitter user Social Tamasha, right-wing website OpIndia, which “fact-checked” the video and concluded that it was fake.
Many others, such as Twitter handle Breaking TUBE News, also concluded that the video, in which Adityanath could be seen getting angry, was edited. These, among many such claims, were then retweeted by Adityantah’s media advisor, Shalabh Mani Tripathi.
He retweeted multiple versions of such “fact-checks”, though he himself didn’t comment on the matter.
SO, DID YOGI ADITYANATH ABUSE ON CAMERA OR NOT?
To begin with, the footage is not edited in anyway.
- ANI tweeted a clearer version of the same footage around 10:08 am with an editor’s note that read: “Earlier-issued live sound byte is retracted.” However the news agency didn’t clarify the reason behind the retraction. We reached out to ANI editor Smita Prakash for a clarification and the story will be updated as and when we hear from her.
- This footage was aired by several news channels, like News18 Uttarakhand (can be vieweed here), ABP Ganga and First India News Rajasthan. The live footage on First India News Rajasthan (archive here) is still up and the abuse can be heard around the 2:13 mark.
- Fact-checking website BOOM spoke to three news channels, which confirmed that they had received this feed at 8 am, but ANI later sent them a note retracting the video.
- Further, one can notice the difference in the two videos and it’s evident that the second video has been reshot.
Speaking to news website Newslaundry, UP’s additional chief secretary of information also claimed that the video seemed to be “morphed”. However, there is enough visual evidence to suggest that the first video had not been tampered with in anyway.
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