Lighthouse Journalism came across a newspaper clipping being widely shared on social media platforms. The Hindi language newspaper clipping was titled, ‘मुस्लिमों की भीड़ ने आंबेडकर की मूर्ति तोड़ी, दलितों को पिटा’ (A crowd of Muslims break Ambedkar’s statue and beat Dalits). The news report as seen in the image was filed by ‘Amar Ujala bureau’. During the investigation we found that the news is not recent. This newspaper clip from 2019 has resurfaced with users sharing it claiming to be recent. Viral claims are misleading.
Claim:
X user Sunil Shukla shared the newspaper clip on his profile.
Check the archive version of the post.
Other users too are sharing the newspaper clip.
Investigation:
We started the investigation by copying the Hindi headline and searching it on X.
We found that an X user had posted this news report on May 16, 2019.
We then searched this text through Google search. We found a link which had carried this news report.
Through the same we found the news on the website of amarujala.com.
The report was published on 21st April 2019 and the incident happened in Mahuva region of Karjaha village in Gauri Bazar.
Conclusion: Newspaper clipping of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar’s statue being destroyed in 2019 goes viral as recent. Viral claims are misleading.
