Weekly Fact-Check: Debunking Misinformation Surrounding Manipur Violence and Rahul Gandhi

From the misinformation surrounding the ongoing crisis in Manipur, which recently experienced a resurgence of ethnic violence, to false claims about a San Francisco-based newspaper criticizing the leader of the Opposition, Rahul Gandhi, following his visit to the United States, here are our top fact-checks of the week.

A video purportedly showing a group of people attacking a youth while assisting a severely injured girl has been circulating on social media. The claim that a Muslim boy stabbed a Hindu girl in broad daylight in Kolkata was found to be misleading. Our investigation revealed that the video does not depict a mob attacking a Muslim man for stabbing a Hindu girl and contains no communal angle.

A screenshot alleging that a San Francisco-based newspaper criticized Rahul Gandhi with the headline, “Americans are asking is Rahul from India or Pakistan?” was widely shared on social media. We discovered that the screenshot was a digitally translated Hindi news report falsely presented as a critique by a San Francisco-based publication.

Social media platforms also saw a video claiming that Kuki militants used drones to bomb Meitei houses in Manipur amid renewed violence in the state. Our fact-check revealed that this video is actually from Myanmar and not from Manipur, as claimed.

A video that went viral alleged that Mary Bilman, a senior employee at the White House, criticized Rahul Gandhi. However, our research showed that the person in the video was American singer Mary Millben, and the video was misrepresented.

Following the announcement of the birth of Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh‘s first child, manipulated photographs purportedly showing the couple with their newborn went viral online. Upon investigation, it was confirmed that these images were indeed manipulated.