A message claiming director Vivek Agnihotri donated Rs 200 crores to the Prime Minister's relief fund from his film 'The Kashmir Files' earnings has been widely shared on social media.
At the time of publishing this article, BOOM could not find any credible evidence suggesting that Agnihotri, or the producers of The Kashmir Files, have donated any earnings from the film to PM Relief Fund, or any other fund. Furthermore, neither Agnihotri, nor anyone else from the team has made any statement to suggest the same. In an interview, Agnihotri once mentioned that they "raised money for the community during COVID-19", but the details of that claim could not be verified independently by BOOM.
When BOOM asked Agnihotri through WhatsApp whether the viral message had any truth to it, he responded, "I have no idea."
The movie 'The Kashmir Files' is in the news headlines for several weeks now due to intense political battles. Delhi Deputy Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Manish Sisodia lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and said the BJP is only concerned about the movie while the AAP is concerned about the Kashmiri Pandits. He further demanded that Rs 200 crore from the movie earnings should be used for the welfare of the Kashmiri Pandits and rebuilding their homes.
The message is going viral in this backdrop.
The message in Hindi translates to, "Total Rs 200 Crores collection of The Kashmir Files has been donated to the Prime Minister's relief fund. Kudos to Vivek Agnihotri".
(Original Text: प्रधानमंत्री राहत कोष में कश्मीर फाइलों का पूरा संग्रह 200 करोड़ दान करने पर विवेक अग्निहोत्री को नमन)
Click here to view the post.
The photo has been shared on Facebook as well.
Click here to view the post.
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Fact Check
BOOM noticed that the viral message is widely circulating on WhatsApp including other social media platforms. A relevant keyword search about the claim mentioning Rs 200 crores donation to the Prime Minister's relief fund from the film 'The Kashmir Files' earnings showed us no credible news report stating the same.
The photo of Agnihotri, his wife actor Pallavi Joshi and producer Abhishek Agarwal standing with Prime Minister Narendra Modi was taken a day after the film released.
We found the same photo on a Business Standard article published on March 12, 2022 reporting about 'The Kashmir Files' team meeting Modi. The article said that they received appreciation from the prime minister for the film, but did not mention any donations to the PM Relief Fund.
Producer Abhishek Agarwal too tweeted the same photo on March 12, 2022 mentioning the same.
Click here to view the tweet.
Furthermore, we found a Koimoi report published on March 26, 2022 about director Vivek Agnihotri and wife Pallavi Joshi's reaction about the question during an interview with radio and television host Siddharth Kannan.
The article reported Agnihotri saying in the interview, "From past few years, we are helping the Kashmiri Pandit community and when do you 'service' work I don't like to talk about it. We've been doing it for a long time and we'll keep doing it. It's been us and them and I don't think we owe anything to 3rd person."
Adding to this, his wife actor Pallavi Joshi said, "I think it's very vulgar of people to actually ask us, 'if you earn 400 crores, how many crores will you donate to them.' This is a very vulgar question for people to ask because the film already has 4 producers. Who gets how much is a very long drawn mathematics. Also, whenever any producer makes money out of any film, they obviously put it to make more projects."
None of them make any mention of having donated money from the earnings to the film to any fund or organisation.
The interview can be seen below.
We also reached out to director Vivek Agnihotri via WhatsApp and sent him the viral graphic to know truth about the viral claim.
"I have no idea," Vivek responded to BOOM.
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