Morphed news graphics falsely claim Amit Shah contracted coronavirus

Two images are circulating on social media with the claim, “Home Minister Amit Shah in the grip of coronavirus”. Both the images seem to be a still from TV channels.

The viral image with the logo of Aaj Tak shows Shah surrounded by men dressed in white and in military uniform. In the bottom of the image, we see the caption – “Breaking News गृहमंत्री अमित शाह कोरोना की चपेट में (Translation Home Minister Amit Shah in the grip of coronavirus). Alt News has received several requests to fact-check the viral images on WhatsApp (+91 76000 11160) and on our official Android application.

The second viral image has a logo of Sach News. This image shows a screen with the text in Hindi which states Amit Shah tested positive with coronavirus, admitted in hospital (translated from अमित शाह आये कोरोना कि चपेट में अस्पताल में भर्ती). Just like the first viral image, we received several requests to fact-check this image as well.

Fact-check

Image 1

This image has been made using Break Your Own News, a meme generator. Once the meme is made, the image has a watermark which says ‘breakyourownnews.com’. The screenshot below highlights that in green.

In the viral image, it is noticeable that the area next to the Aaj Tak logo is blurred. This confirms that the meme has been maliciously morphed by adding the Aaj Tak logo and blurring the watermark which was not hidden by the logo.

The person on Shah’s right is BJP member Ashish Shelar. Using this as a clue, Alt News performed a keyword search on Google and found an Indian Express report from 2014. According to the report, Amit Shah visited NCP chief Sharad Pawar at Breach Candy Hospital after Pawar underwent a thigh surgery.

Image 2

Alt News looked up for Sach news channel on the list of paid and free TV channels grouped by the Telecom Regulatory Authority. We could not find a channel by this name. Moreover, the background screen has ABP News written on it.

Here’s a still from March 28 bulletin published on YouTube.