A fake screenshot of an Instagram story by Indian cricketer Virat Kohli posting in solidarity with the people of Gaza and dedicating his 49th One Day International (ODI) hundred to those affected by the conflict is being shared on social media. BOOM found that Kohli had not posted any such story on his official Instagram handle.
Kohli scored his 49th ODI ton on November 5, 2023, in the ODI World Cup match against South Africa equalising Sachin Tendulkar’s world record. While batting first against the Proteas, Kohli scored 101 runs from 127 balls, with India setting a target of 327 runs. South Africa went on to lose the match by 243 runs with the team getting all out for just 83 runs in 27.1 overs.
The Gaza strip which is controlled by Hamas, has been under constant bombardment by Israeli airstrikes after the attack by the militant group on October 7, 2023. According to Gaza's Ministry of Health, nearly 9,700 people have been killed, mostly women and children.
Former Indian cricketer Irfan Pathan posted on X on November 3, 2023, condemning the killing of children in Gaza and calling on world leaders to "unite and put an end to this senseless killing". Pakistan cricketer Muhammad Rizwan had dedicated his team’s win in the ODI World Cup match against Sri Lanka to the people of Gaza on October 11, 2023. Rizwan had scored a century in that match which contributed to Pakistan's victory.
A verified X (formerly know as Twitter) handle @rheahhh_ posted a screenshot which purports to show a story by Kohli with the graphic "In solidarity with Gaza".
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With several users pointing out that Kohli did not post any such Instagram story, the X handle then went on to claim that he deleted it.
Other X handles also posted the same fake screenshot to make the false claim.
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the viral Instagram screenshot of the story is fake and Virat Kohli has not posted anything on Gaza after scoring his 49th ODI hundred against South Africa.
We checked Kohli's official Instagram account and did not find any Instagram story by the cricketer.
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Instagram stories vanish automatically after 24 hours of the user posting it. Kohli has more than 262 million followes on Instagram.
According to the fake screenshot posted by the X handle, it claimed that the Instagram story was up for attleast 19 minutes before getting deleted. In that case there would of been several other screenshots or news reports on Kohli posting in solidarity with the people Gaza, however, we did not find any news report or screenshots.
BOOM has previously debunked several
fake Instagram story screenshots that have gone viral been falsely claimed to be posted by Kohli.
At the time of writing this story, Kohli has not posted anything on the Israel - Hamas conflict.