Bulandshahr blast: Sudarshan News, RW handles falsely claim house belonged to a Muslim

On March 31, a blast rocked a house in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh, leaving several people dead. Sharing the news, many media outlets, Right Wing influencers and journalists tweeted that the explosion took place at the residence of a certain Mohammad Shafiq, resulting in four deaths.

Sudarshan News UP tweeted about the incident and made the same claim.

The New Indian also tweeted about the incident with the accompanying claim.

BJP supporter Arun Pudur, who frequently shares misinformation on social media, also posted a tweet claiming that a blast occurred at the house of Mohammad Shafiq.

Jitendra Pratap Singh of Sudarshan News, suspended BJP MP Naveen Jindal, Sudhir Mishra, journalist Shobhna Yadav, and Sujeet Swami among others also tweeted about the incident with similar claims.

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Fact Check

Upon searching for news reports related to the explosion, Alt News came across an article by Dainik Bhaskar. The daily reported that six people died in a blast at a house in Bulandshahr. The investigation revealed that both the home and the plot on which it was built belonged to an individual named Satish. Another man named Rajkumar was occupying the home as a tenant. According to this report, among the six people killed in the explosion, three were Hindus (Abhishek, Chandrapal, Vinod) and two Muslims (Rais and his five-year-old son Ahad). A woman’s head was also recovered from the spot, while the search for her body was still on.

Bulandshahr SSP Shlok Kumar shared more information pertaining to the case in a statement to the media. He revealed that after receiving the information about the explosion in Bulandshahr’s Nagar Kotwalon area, a police team reached the spot and recovered some evidence. On the basis of this evidence, they found documents mentioning M/S Air Star Traders Co., which is registered under a person named Rajkumar. The police also came to know from the GST number mentioned on those papers that Rajkumar had a licence for dealing in chemicals. Based on this information, the police raided the house of the company owner and seized some material. Police had also constituted an SIT to investigate the matter.

थाना कोतवाली नगर क्षेत्रान्तर्गत खेतों के बीच बने एक मकान में विस्फोट होने के सम्बन्ध में वरिष्ठ पुलिस अधीक्षक की #अपडेट बाइट।@Uppolice @dgpup @adgzonemeerut @igrangemeerut pic.twitter.com/Bl0IhMxCOD

— Bulandshahr Police (@bulandshahrpol) March 31, 2023

Alt News also reached out to the PRO of SSP Bulandshahr. He sent us the details of the incident. He confirmed that the owner of the company was Rajkumar and the land on which the house was built belonged to an individual named Satish. The house where the explosion took place did not belong to any Mohammad Shafiq.

We also found a brochure of M/S Air Star Traders Co. on the IndiaMart website. It contains details about the company, such as the products in its catalogue, many of which are chemicals and firecrackers. The name ‘Raj kumar’ is given in the contact details.

To sum it up, several users and media outlets claimed that four people had died in a blast in Mohammad Shafiq’s house in Bulandshahr. In reality, the house where the blast took place belongs to a man named Satish who had given the house on rent to Rajkumar, the owner of a company named M/S Air Star Traders.