A photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi clicked at a railway station is going viral on social media in which we can see him standing under a digital clock that shows the time as ‘4:20’. Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code deals with cheating and fraud cases. It is common to refer to a fraudster in India as a ‘420’. The photo is being used to mock the Prime Minister.
Twitter user Jayashankar Kenath, whose bio says he is the editor of The Indian News, shared this photo with the caption ‘What an apt capture’. His tweet received 900+ retweets and over 6,000 likes.
Another user, Abiha Zaidi, also shared the photo on Twitter with a similar caption.
Multiple users have shared this photo on Twitter in the last 24 hours. Though some of these posts have not received likes and retweets as the two mentioned above, they are quite a few in number.
Fact Check
We performed a Google reverse image search on the viral photo and came across multiple news articles about PM Narendra Modi’s visit to the Varanasi railway station around this time last year. The photos have been credited to the Twitter account of PM Modi.
Upon digging into PM Modi’s Twitter account, we found the original set of photos uploaded. The time on the station clock in the original photo is ’01:13′. The photos were uploaded on social media around 01:23 AM.
Next stop…Banaras station. We are working to enhance rail connectivity as well as ensure clean, modern and passenger friendly railway stations. pic.twitter.com/tE5I6UPdhQ
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 13, 2021
When we compared the two photos, we noticed a watermark on one of the pillars in the background which is not there in the original photo. This further proves that the now-viral photo has been morphed.
Hence it is clear that a morphed photo of PM Modi’s visit to the Varanasi railway station last year has been shared on Twitter to mock the leader. Previously a morphed jersey with ‘Modi 420’ written on it was viral on social media.
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