Photoshopped Image Of Narendra Modi And Other News You Almost Believed

Here's a round-up of this week's News You Almost Believed.

Sanjay Nirupam, president of the Mumbai Congress Committee scored a self goal on Thursday by tweeting an old photoshopped picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that purports to show him eating from a lavish spread. BOOM was able to to trace the original picture to TimesContent.com's photo archives. A comparison between the two photos show that the one shared by Nirupam is clearly photoshopped. Read the full story here.

A video policemen parading and thrashing three men in public which was viral on WhatsApp last week has now surfaced on Facebook with a false narrative and a communal twist - "RSS thugs beating Dalit men for saying Jai Bhim while the police looked on." BOOM's verification had revealed that one of the three men in the video is Shailesh Dhandhaliya, a notorious gangster from Bhavnagar who is a history-sheeter with cases registered against him for extortion, robbery and kidnapping. And, the plain-clothes policeman in the video beating the accused with a laathi is Deepak Mishra, police inspector, Crime Branch, Bhavnagar. Read the full story here.

A collage of two graphic images of a naked Adivasi woman being chased and beaten on the streets by a few men has made a comeback. A Facebook page called Hindu Akhilesh Gupta claimed that the Congress party workers harassed a Hindu lady by beating and chasing her. The post claimed that the woman was assaulted for raising slogans in support of BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a Congress rally. But the incident was reported to have happened in 2007 in Assam where hundreds of tribals were attacked by the public. The woman mentioned in these posts was attacked by three men who stripped her naked. Read the full story here.

Fake news website Postcard's Telegu Facebook page had shared a video that claims "Indian Islamic Extremists in India beating up a lord Shiva follower NAGA Sadhu #Uttarkhand." BOOM contacted Dehradun police who clarified that the man getting beaten up was an imposter dressed as a sadhu who was thrashed for molesting a woman. The police said that the narrative around the video is false and that neither the youngster nor the old man is a Muslim and both are Hindus. Read the full story here.

An alarming story of "Flood Situation Worsens In Assam With At Least 225 Animals Found Dead At Kaziranga National Park" was viral on social media. Many of the people who shared it on social media to draw attention to the Assam floods have cited articles by ScoopWhoop or the Indian Express. Those who have used the Indian Express article seemed to have ignored the date of publication - August 19, 2017. But when checked the link to the ScoopWhoop article from this year, we found that the article has been removed from the site. ScoopWhoop had linked the information to the Indian Express's August 19, 2017 article without checking for the date. Read the full story here.

'Former Pope Benedict performed Hajj in Mecca' claims a Malayalam WhatsApp message. The first part of the message loosely translates to, "The former Pope of the Roman Catholic Church has embraced Islam. Invited by the Saudi government to perform Hajj at Mecca, he was seen performing the ceremony of 'Stoning the Devil' at Jamarat. The Saudi police are seen helping him." A factcheck by France 24 shows that the video was going viral globally since last week and that the person seen in the video is not the former Pope Benedict. So, if not the former Pope, who is this person in the video? Read the full story here.

A scene from a very popular Malayalam Television serial was shared by certain Facebook users targeting the communist government of Kerala. But the image is a still from the tragic climax of the serial 'Parasparam' aired on Asianet. The lead actors who played the roles of IPS officer Deepthi and her husband Sooraj - are seen bidding good bye to their family before the explosion of the capsule bomb they had swallowed at gun point. Read the full story here.