A doctored video of Yogi Adityanath quoting a remark by a Samajwadi Party (SP) leader questioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the 'mangalsutras' (a sacred thread worn by married Hindu women) of the widows of the security personnel who died in the Pulwama terror attack, is viral with a false claim that the Uttar Pradesh chief minister questioned Modi.
While the Noida police have termed the video an AI generated deepfake and arrested an X user for posting the same, BOOM found that the video is a altered video but not a deepfake. In the original, Adityanath was in fact quoting Dimple Yadav, SP leader, who had in her speech attacked Modi's mangalsutra remark. We also tested the video using a deepfake detection tool Itisaar developed by IIT-Jodhpur, which confirmed that although the video is doctored, it is not a deepfake.
On April 21, 2024, Modi as part of the campaigning for the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, claimed that if Congress came to power, they would "redistribute wealth" and added that the party would also, "conduct a survey and not even let Mangalsutras remain with women". Modi claimed that all these points were written in the Congress manifesto for the elections, including that people's assets would be collected and distributed to "those with more kids", implying the Muslim community.
The 'mangalsutra' comment by Modi drew wide spread criticism. BOOM checked this claim made by Modi about the Congress manifesto and found that they are misleading.
In the viral video, Adityanath can be heard saying, "Brothers and sisters, we also want to ask Modi, what happened to the mangalsutras of the widows of the soldiers who died in Pulwama...." The clip is being shared with text in Hindi that roughly translates to, "Even Yogi spoke up against Modi and he too has questioned the loss of mangalsutras of the widows of soldiers who died in Pulwama"
FACT CHECK
BOOM found that the video is altered by cutting and pasting different portions of Yogi Adityanth's speech to make the false claim.
We also got the video examined through Itisaar - a deepfake detection tool designed by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Jodhpur, which determined that the video is edited.
The video has been doctored using conventional editing techniques and not through deep learning algorithms.
We first noticed that the video had several jumpcuts indicating that the video had been tampered with. A reverse image search on some keyframes from the video, with the keywords, 'Yogi adityanath + Mangalsutra + Lok Sabha elections' led us to the original video uploaded on wire agency ANI's verified YouTube channel on April 25, 2024.
In the original video from Adityanath's campaign speech in Etawah, Uttar Pradesh on April 25, 2024, he can be heard saying, "...A very amusing remark came from the Samajwadi Party leader from here. She is asking Prime Minister Modi what happened to the 'mangalsutras' of the widows of the soldiers who lost their lives in Pulwama. Brothers and sisters, I want to ask that leader of the Samajwadi Party, what happened to the blood shed of the 'rambhakts' caused by the Samajwadi Party government in Ayodhya. What happened to the widows of those youngsters, what happened to their mangalsutras?"
This can be heard at the 14:39 timestamp in the video below:
The same was also posted by ANI on their X handle.
In the viral video, the part where Adityanath says, "a samajwadi party leader made a comment about Modi..." has been cropped out to make the misleading claim that he is questioning the prime minister.
A further search for news reports about the speech led us to a Hindustan Times report published on April 26, 2024 which reported that Adityanath was refering to the SP candidate Dimple Yadav. Yadav, the incumbent from Mainpuri constituency is the wife of former UP chief minister and SP president, Akhilesh Yadav. In his speech, Adityanath was referring to Yadav's comment from her campaign speech in Unnao where she hit back at Modi's 'mangalsutra' remark by asking about the Pulwama attack in 2019 which led to the deaths of about 40 CRPF personnel.
The HT report said, "The CM adopted an aggressive tone and sharply reacted to a recent comment by SP candidate from Mainpuri Dimple Yadav" and further added, "The Samajwadi Party should itself give an account of killings of innocents in their tenure and talk about ‘mangalsutra’ of widows of slain MLA Krishnanand Rai, lawyer Umesh Pal and Raju Pal who came from backward community. SP is answerable to Alka Rai, Pooja Pal, Jaya Pal and widows of kar sewaks who were fired upon in Ayodhya during SP rule in Uttar Pradesh..."
