A three decade old photograph of Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with Union Minister G Kishan Reddy and others, standing outside the gate of the White House in the United States, is viral with captions misidentifying the latter as con man Kiran Patel, who was recently arrested.
Kiran Patel was recently arrested by Jammu and Kashmir Police for pretending to be top ranking official at the Prime Minister's Office. He has been also accused of cheating several people in Gujarat, promising government contracts or clearances.
Preliminary police investigation suggested that Patel “impersonated as a senior government official of India”, and was arrested in the first week of March by the Jammu and Kashmir Police in Srinagar, The Hindu reported on March 18, 2023. He has been booked for cheating, forgery, impersonation and duping gullible people “under a well-knit plan for securing monetary as well as material benefits” the report added.
In the viral group photo, PM Modi is standing outside the White House in Washington, United States. The man standing to the left of Modi is being misidentified as Patel.
The viral photo is being shared with the caption, "Kiran Patel, 1993. Yeh to Modiji ka purana yaar nikla" (This is Modi ji's old friend)
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The photo is being widely shared on Facebook with the same misleading claim.
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the man standing to the left of Modi in the viral photo is not Kiran Patel, but BJP leader and Union Minister G Kishan Reddy.
Taking a hint from the caption that the viral photo is from PM Modi's visit to the United States, we ran a keyword search with "Modi 1993 US Visit" and found news reports that had the same photo with captions identifying the man in the viral photo as Reddy.
The same photo can be seen in this report dated September 26, 2014 article published by The Indian Express with the headline, "Narendra Modi in US – Journey from outside the White House to private dinner with Obama".
The caption of the photo crediting it to the news agency PTI reads, "Seen here Narendra Modi (2nd from left) outside the White House in Washington in 1994 along with G Kishan Reddy (1st from left), currently BJP State President, Telangana."
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We also found the original post on Facebook by Reddy posted on September 25, 2014, where he had included the viral photo along with several other photos mentioning that it was from 1994 when PM Modi had visited the US on the invitation of American Council of Young Political Leaders.
The caption of the post read, "20 years ago in 1994 Sri Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, visited USA on the invitation of ACYPL (American Council of Young Political Leaders). I was part of his team along with Sri Ananth Kumar Union Minister for fertilizers and Chemicals and today he is visiting USA again as the proud Prime Minister of India. Let us greet him to make this historic movement in Indo-US relation. Here are a few pictures from my memory-lane which I feel to share with you to reminisce the occasion."