Journalist Rana Ayyub didn’t tweet about Afzal Guru and the former president late Pranab Mukherjee.
An image of a tweet by Journalist Rana Ayyub is being viral on many social media platforms with the picture of former president late Pranab Mukherjee with the following text.
“The Man who rejected martyr Afzal Guru’s petition is dead. Afzal Guru is at peace today !”
Claim: The viral tweet image claims that Journalist Rana Ayyub tweeted a picture of former president late Pranab Mukherjee saying that he is the person who rejected the mercy petition of Afzal Guru. As per the tweet text after the demise of former president late Pranab Mukherjee now only Afzal Guru would be at peace today.
The archived version of this post can be accessed from here.
The archived version of this post can be accessed from here.
Fir Bhi Har Ghar Se Afzal Maregaa.😂😂@RanaAyyub pic.twitter.com/DnHYEvpLTQ
— #IamSushant❤🇮🇳 (@Jaz_baatein) September 1, 2020
The archived version of this tweet can be accessed from here.
@RanaAyyub – Why u deleted this tweet?
Isit because this tweet exposes ur real self who supports a terrorist?
This is how u show ur disrespect to our ex pres. Bharat Ratna Shri Pranab Mukherjee? FOS doesn’t gives u liberty to speak anything abt anybody. 4 You-Rot in hell forever pic.twitter.com/rM3zEvZTJq— Biswa – I Support #CAA 🇮🇳 (@GoodWorld4All) September 1, 2020
The archived version of this tweet can be accessed from here.
Truth
When we searched the whole twitter timeline of journalist Rana Ayyub till 31st August 2020 we did not find any tweet mentioning former president Late Pranab Mukherjee which mentioned Afzal Guru. Moreover when we investigated this tweet in order to find the original tweet consisting of 276 comments,415 retweets, and 1811 likes.
The screenshot is fake, the image is created digitally.
Observe the he viral image in detail
On a closer look, you can see three smudge/dots (circled in red) which is a result of editing. Also the date on right top is missing.
Following is the ELA (Error Level Analysis) of the same which makes it much clearer. Check details here
Now if we look closely we can see that both this tweet and the viral photoshopped tweet contains the following differences :
- The date with the viral tweet is missing while in the original tweet it is clearly present.
- The space between the username and the text of the viral tweet is more than it is actually present in an original tweet.
- As we all know that if multiple persons take a screenshot then will get different fonts/color (dark mode), different alignment like from timeline or individual tweet, or from desktop or mobile in their screenshots but in this viral screenshot we did not come across any other screenshot in terms of fonts, themes, etc. The viral image is same in all tweets, posts
- If a tweet is viral and the creator of that particular tweet deletes it from its feed then also one could see replies as well as comments made by other users on that deleted tweet but in this viral tweet case, we did not found any such likes and replies. Replies to a tweet can be found using “to” operator. while the image shows 276 replies, we coulnd’t find any.
- The viral image is just one with same number showing likes, replies and shares, not any other screenshot at all.
- Whenever a tweet is deleted it is often archived by the other twitter users on the internet and in this case, we searched the online archive databases but did not found any such tweet. This tweet wasn’t archived anywhere.
Later on, we also found a tweet by the Journalist Rana Ayyub herself stating that a photoshopped tweet is getting viral by her name but she doesn’t have any connection nor endorsement with that tweet.
Hello @TwitterIndia this photoshopped tweet is being circulated and shared by thousands on all social media leading to targeted abuse and harassment pic.twitter.com/0RQtEEe37f
— Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) September 1, 2020
This woman quoting a fake, photoshopped tweet to attack me is followed by Modi on social media @TwitterIndia https://t.co/vT7QqAcwcJ
— Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) September 1, 2020
Therefore in our investigation, the claims made on this viral video were found to be false.
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