Amid reports of hundreds of thousands of vehicles crossing the Atal Tunnel in the last 24 hours in Himachal Pradesh, a picture of a massive traffic jam has gone viral with a claim that it is recent and shows the tunnel's condition.
Media outlets such as TV9 Bharatvarsh, Dainik Bhaskar, and a portal named Ground Report shared the same image while referring to the traffic snarl.
(Swipe right to view all the claims.)
An archive of the article can be found here.
(Source: TV9 Bharatvarsh/Screenshot)
Rishi Bagree, a verified Twitter user, had also shared the image. However, he later deleted it (archive here).
(Archives of other similar claims can be found here, here, and here.)
The truth: The picture could be traced back to January 2022 and the photographer, Yash Handa, confirmed to The Quint that he clicked it.
How did we find out?: At first, we came across a post uploaded on 25 December on a Facebook page called 'Kullu Manali Heaven on Earth.' The post carried the same image and was attributed to an Instagram account.
After going through the Instagram account named 'theyashhanda', we found the image uploaded on 27 January. The image's location was mentioned as Manali, Himachal Pradesh.
Further, The Quint reached out to Yash Handa, who confirmed to us that the image was captured by him. He said, "I took this photo on 2nd Jan 2022." However, he didn't share any other details with us.
Atal Tunnel's traffic jam: According to recent reports, more than 10,000 vehicles have crossed Atal Tunnel from Saturday 8 am, causing heavy traffic jam.
Conclusion: A picture from January is being shared to falsely claim that it shows the recent traffic jam on Atal Tunnel, Himachal Pradesh.
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