A year old video of journalist Rana Ayyub walking out of a police station in Uttar Pradesh is being shared linking it to the recent investigation against her by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) of Delhi, claiming she has been taken into custody in a money laundering case.
BOOM found that the video is old, from 2021 and shows Ayyub walking out of a police station where she had been called to record her statement.
Additionally, speaking to BOOM, Ayyub denied that she had been arrested by the ED and said that she was at home.
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The video is viral after the ED on February 11, attached Rs 1.77 crore belonging to Ayyub, in connection with an alleged money laundering case. Following the same, Ayyub rejected the allegations against her and also issued a statement on Twitter.
The video is being shared falsely linking it to her recent case with a caption in Hindi that translates to, 'What will madam say now. Rana Ayyub, who spreads rumors and hatred against Hindus in the name of journalism by taking foreign money, has been caught. ED has attached Rs 1.77 crore, there is also an allegation of money laundering'.
(Hindi: मैडम अब बोलें भी तो क्या विदेशी पैसे ले कर पत्रकारिता के नाम पर देश में अफवाह और हिंदुओ के विरुद्ध नफरत फैलाने वाली राणा अयूब धर ली गयी हैं, 1.77 करोड़ रुपए ED ने किए अटैच, मनी लॉन्ड्रिंग का आरोप भी है।)
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Fact Check
BOOM did a reverse image search on one of its keyframes and found the viral video uploaded on a YouTube channel The News Revivers on July 2, 2021. The caption with the video reads 'Ghaziabad fake hate video: Rana Ayyub questioned by UP Police, statement recorded'.
Taking cue, we performed a keyword search on YouTube and found the same video uploaded on the YouTube channel of Punjab Kesari UP with a Hindi title translating to 'Old man attack case: Rana Ayyub gives her statement, police interrogation goes on for two hours'.
(Hindi: बुजुर्ग मारपीट मामला- पत्रकार राणा अय्यूब ने दर्ज कराए बयान, 2 घंटे तक पुलिस ने की पूछताछ).
BOOM had reported the incident in June 2021 when the Uttar Pradesh police had registered an FIR against nine - including social media platform Twitter, journalists, Congress leaders and news website The Wire for tweets posted in connection with the assault on an elderly man in Loni, Ghaziabad.
Read Ghaziabad Attack: Police Books Twitter, Journalists, Politicians For Tweets
The UP police had booked journalists Rana Ayyub, Saba Naqvi, co-founder of fact checking site Alt News Mohammed Zubair and three Congress leaders Shama Mohamed, Salman Nizami and Maskoor Usmani.
The police had invoked sections pertaining to provoking enmity for tweeting a video of the victim Abdul Samad Saifi alleging that he was forced to chant Jai Shri Ram by his attackers who also beat him up and cut off his beard. The FIR mentioned that they did not verify claims before sharing the video and added that Twitter made no attempts to stop the video from spreading, thereby furthering communal disharmony.
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