In the wake of nationwide protests over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the NRC, screenshots of what are claimed to be tweets by Nita Ambani have been shared widely on social media. According to these tweets, the chairperson of the Reliance Foundation has purportedly spoken out in favour of PM Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, apart from tweets of communal nature.
Log JIO SIM kyun PORT karwa rahe hai… Kya kiya NITA AMBANI ne…
Log JIO SIM kyun PORT karwa rahe hai… Kya kiya NITA AMBANI ne…
VIDEO DEKHIYE aur JAANIYE
Posted by Hyderabad News And Updates on Sunday, December 22, 2019
The above post has been shared over 4400 times. As can be seen, the tweets are from an account @NitaAmbaani. Some of these alleged tweets are inflammatory in nature, spewing hatred against the Muslim community. The post contains an audio clip wherein a person calls the Reliance Jio customer care service and asks for portability of the number to another service provide, in light of these alleged tweets by Nita Ambani. The screenshots have been shared with appeals to social media users to boycott Reliance Jio. The same audio clip has been posted on YouTube. It has been viewed over 340,000 times so far.
One of the tweets by the account reads, “मित्रों अब वक़्त आ चुका है मोदी और शाह के साथ खड़े होने का क्योंकि आज अगर ये टूट गए तो फिर कोई हिम्मत नहीं करेगा बड़ा निर्णय लेने का (Friends, the time has come to stand with Modi and Shah because if they break today, no one will dare to take a big decision.)”
The screenshots have also been posted with a message in Bengali- “বিজেপি সরকারের সংবিধান বিরোধী NRC ও CAB কে সমর্থন করার কারণে Jio কোম্পানিকে বয়কট করার হিড়িক পড়ে গিয়েছে। #আপনিও PORT করে নিন আপনার Jio sim টি। এবং বিজেপির পা চাঁটা jio কোম্পানি তথা মানবতার দুশমনদের দাঁতভাঙ্গা জবাব দিন.!!!!” They have also been shared on Twitter.
Nita ambani is Anti Muslims Tweet
I am Port My Jio numbar In other Company And i hate Jio I hate Ambani’s I hate Relince And Fuck you All of Relince pic.twitter.com/RnsiZ9a31X— nawazish alam (@nawazishalam8) December 21, 2019
On the basis of these tweets, a boycott of Reliance products has been called for by some sections.
Boycott Jio, Boycott Reliance products and boycott everything that belongs to B teams of BJP. RT if you want to save India. Love you.
🙏🏻💐🙏🏻 pic.twitter.com/J2ATPOXuvz
— ❤️ Mohammed Faiz ❤️ (@Fayezz_Md) December 25, 2019
FACT CHECK: FAKE ACCOUNT
Alt News found that the tweets in question are not from the official account of Nita Ambani. In fact, Nita Ambani does not have a Twitter account. These tweets are from an impostor account. A screenshot of this fake account is posted below.
The account had over 18,000 followers before it was suspended by Twitter after it was reported by several users. It may be noted that had Nita Ambani indeed tweeted to this effect, it would invariably have been reported by the media. However, there are no media reports on this.
Independent journalism that speaks truth to power and is free of corporate and political control is possible only when people start contributing towards the same. Please consider donating towards this endeavour to fight fake news and misinformation.