In a recent viral video, one can see JCB excavators tearing down a structure, which kind of resembles a mosque. Several netizens are now claiming that the viral structure is an illegally built mosque from Unnao, Uttar Pradesh. In the video, several JCB machines are seen demolishing houses built on the roadside in the presence of the police. In the same video, a JCB machine also breaks down a building with a white humongous dome structure. It is being claimed that it is a mosque that was demolished by the police due to illegality. At the same time, it is also being said that the houses being demolished belong to Muslims, which is illegal.

 The video is shared with a Hindi caption which translates to ‘The mosque of that goat from Unnao who was calling Badrinath as the abode of Badruddin was demolished. Along with it the houses around the mosque were also razed. FIR was filed and he was asked to produce the papers. The mosque and houses were built on encroached land’.

 It was shared on other social media pages, including Facebook. A caption with one of the Facebook posts translates to ‘They were asked to show the papers… and then JCB came. The mosque and surrounding houses were demolished. FIR was filed. The houses and mosque were illegally constructed’.

However, the fact check tells otherwise. On performing a keyword search, it was found that the viral video does show a demolition process underway in the Sohramau area of Unnao but, the claim that a mosque was brought down in the process is false. The district magistrate of Unnao himself refuted the viral claims. In the process, a News18 report dated July 27 was retrieved. According to the report, illegal houses built on the land of the Irrigation Department were removed in the Sohramau police station area, falling on the Lucknow-Kanpur highway in Unnao. On June 23, 2020, District Panchayat member Arun Singh had lodged a complaint against the landowners who had illegally occupied the land of the Irrigation Department. The department took action after the complaint was found to be true.

 The Uttar Pradesh Irrigation Department has also shared the video of the administration’s action on its official Twitter handle. Uttar Pradesh’s Jal Shakti Minister Mahendra Singh posted this video on July 26. In a tweet on July 27, he also shared newspaper clips of the removal of encroachments in his tweet.

Unnao District Magistrate Ravindra Kumar who refuted such claims said that the land of the Irrigation Department at this place was illegally occupied for many years. An FIR was also registered by giving notice. “After our notice, many people even removed the encroachment. Later the encroachment was removed in the presence of the irrigation department and other officials,” Kumar told. 

However, as the viral claim suggests that a religious structure was taken down, is simply not true. The structure that was seen falling in the video is the gate of a society that was dome-shaped. It is not related to any mosque or any religious place. Thus, it is clear from the News18 report and the statement of Unnao District Magistrate Ravindra Kumar that the dome shown in the viral video is the gate of a society that was illegally constructed on the land of the Irrigation department. The officials did not demolish any mosque or any kind of religious structure during the encroachment removal drive. Hence, the viral claim is false.

A few days ago, a girl from Lucknow, Priyadarshini Yadav came into the limelight after she allegedly beat a cab driver, Saadat Ali Siddiqui on the ground of reckless driving. The incident took place on 30 July, where she claimed that the cab driver did not follow the traffic rules and ran over her, for which she as a form of self-defense slapped him over 22 times and smashed his phone into pieces, took Rs. 600 from his cab, accused him of trying to take her life, she also added that a whole gang was conspiring against her, and following that Siddiqui was put behind the bars for 72 hours, and his relatives were harassed as well. However, while investing through the case, things got sticky as the CCTV told a whole new different story, where one can easily spot Yadav trying to cross the road through a zebra crossing, even at the ‘green’ light. Siddiqui now seeks justice and appealed for Yadav’s arrest.  

As per the police, the case was filed under sections 394 (voluntarily causing hurt in committing robbery) and 427 (mischief causing damage to the amount of Rs 50) of the Indian Penal Code. 

Although a video surfaced amid all this chaos in which one can see a woman being taken into custody by police officers, she can be seen chained in one hand and is walking with a few lady police officers. Netizens claim her to be Priyadarshani Yadav a.k.a. the ‘Lucknow Girl’. A Facebook page ‘Indian News’ shared the video and has garnered over 1.8 lakh views. The same post was shared on Twitter as too. Even the video is shared on Youtube as well. A channel ‘X24 News’, shared the same viral visuals with different narration.

 To get to the bottom of the random claim, a fact check was necessary. The visuals from the viral video looked suspicious as none of the current COVID-19 protocols were followed. Not even a single soul was spotted using facial masks neither they were maintaining a minimum distance. Additionally, the woman from the viral video did not resemble Priyadarshini Yadav either. A reverse search of different keyframes from the video was done and the same video was found uploaded on a Youtube channel on 30 March 2017. A channel ‘MHK Tanha’ shared the same video and titled, “Anuradha Choudhary LADY Don Anand Pal Case.”

The video describes the woman as Anuradha Chaudhary, a criminal with a reward worth Rs 10 thousand declared from Rajasthan for her arrest. She was a close companion of Rajasthan based-gangster Anand Pal, who died in a police encounter in June 2017.

  Further, news channel News 24 had uploaded a bulletin in 2016 that carried the viral visuals and mentioned that the woman seen in the visuals is ‘Lady Don’ Anuradha Choudhary.

Thus, it is clear that as per the viral claim, the woman in the video is not Priyadarshini and neither is this video recent, as this news belongs from B.C (Before Covid) era. The infamous ‘Lucknow Girl’ is yet to be arrested and had she been arrested, it would have been all over the news.

On August 6 PM Modi announced that the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award would be known as the ‘Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award’ from now onwards after the recent medal victories in the Tokyo Olympics. PM Modi announced this via tweet, he tweeted, “I have been getting many requests from citizens across India to name the Khel Ratna Award after Major Dhyan Chand. I thank them for their views. Respecting their sentiment, the Khel Ratna Award will hereby be called the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award!” 

 Following this, several media outlets and BJP ministers including the former and sitting ministers shared an image thanking PM Modi. The text on the image with a photo of the medal said, “The Khel Ratna Award has been renamed the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award. Thank you, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, for supporting the idea of millions of Indians.”

 Former Education minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, Tamil Nadu BJP chief K Annamalai, National spokesperson of BJP Sambit Patra, BJP Madhya Pradesh, Zee News, Dainik Jagaran, et cetera shared the post among various others.

In one of the tweets, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra thanked PM Modi and shared the image and netizens were quick to spot the difference about the viral image and pointed out that the medal in the post was the Param Vir Chakra and not the Khel Ratna Award. Several opposition party leaders and journalists too spotted the difference and posts started pouring in and flooding the social media that the medal displayed in the viral image was not the ‘Khel Ratna Award’. 

 On visiting the website of the Indian Air Force and Ministry of Defence, a medal was found on the page which resembled the viral image of the claimed ‘Khel Ratna Award’ was the Param Vir Chakra. The Paramvir Chakra is the highest military award in India, given for distinguished wartime acts.

 Param Vir Chakra translates as the “Wheel of the Ultimate Brave”, and the award is granted for “most conspicuous bravery in the presence of the enemy”.

Moreover, upon searching, the original image of the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award on the official website of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports showed up. Multiple images of this award are also available on the international stock image site, Getty Images.

Even these images made it clear that the medal in the image in question is not of Khel Ratna. Looking for the images of Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award on Google an image from 2012 popped up with wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt holding it.

Hence, it is clear that the image in question is of Param Vir Chakra and not Khel Ratna. Since Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna was renamed recently, we need to wait and see what the new medal will look like. The existing photos of the Khel Ratna Award had the embedded text, “Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna”, with an Ashok Stambh. Thus, the medal on the viral photo is not Khel Ratna but Param Vir Chakra.

Union Minister Amit Shah on 1 August addressed a public gathering at Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh, for the upcoming polls which are scheduled in 2022. Shah extolled the state Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath and sang praises of him as he stated that Uttar Pradesh has topped the country with regard to the law and order situation and the economy has grown two-fold in just 4 years of his tenure. He further said that the state has secured the second position in terms of economic growth. The state’s economy grew from 11 lakh crore to 22 lakh crore in the period of last four years. Besides, the state has also become riot-free and safer for women.

Making further such comments, Shah bespoke of Yogi Adityanath’s accomplishments and added a few other statements, which were later found to be inaccurate as per the actual data. Three of those claims are:

1. The current government has worked towards making Uttar Pradesh riot-free and has successfully done so since coming to power in 2017.

2. Since BJP came to power in the state, Uttar Pradesh has become safer for women.

3. While previous governments ‘left’ the state with only 10 medical colleges and the Aditynath government has made provisions for 40 new ones in the last 4 years.

Digging in further, it was found that these three claims do not quite match with the actual claims, as;

The claim which states, ‘the current government has worked towards making Uttar Pradesh riot-free and has successfully done so since coming to power in 2017’, is false.

The data was found to be groundless as according to the National Crime Records Bureau’s ‘Crime in India report’ contradicts the Home Minister’s statements. As per the 2019 NCRB report, 5,714 instances of rioting were recorded in the state.

The state ranks third in the number of cases of rioting, after Maharashtra and Bihar.

In the year 2018 as well, UP ranked third with 8,908 instances of rioting and in 2017, it ranked second behind Bihar, with 8,990 cases. Further, as per an answer given by the Ministry of Home Affairs in the Lok Sabha, dated 11 December 2018, Uttar Pradesh ranked one in ‘communal incidents’ in the year 2017. It had the highest number of incidents in comparison to years 2014-16.

Moreover, Uttar Pradesh police had also charged more than 135 people with rioting during protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in February 2020.

Moving ahead to the second claim, which states that, ‘since BJP came to power in the state, Uttar Pradesh has become safer for women’ was proved to be wrong as according to NCRB’s report on ‘Crime Against Women’, Uttar Pradesh has registered 59,853 cases in 2019. The number has increased each year since 2017. However, the crime rate in UP is 55.4 cases per 1,00,000 people.

 As for the third claim, according to which, ‘the Adityanath government was capable of making provisions for 40 new medical colleges during the tenure of 4 years, whereas the previous governments ‘left’ the state with only 10 medical colleges in last 15 years’.

This claim too was proved wrong as, as per a 2018 document by the Reference Division of Parliamentary Library, there were 45 medical colleges in Uttar Pradesh in 2016-2017. Out of which, 16 were government colleges, while 29 were private colleges. Further, in a written reply in the Lok Sabha in 2016, former Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Faggan Singh Kulaste had stated that Uttar Pradesh had 38 medical colleges.

Additionally, former Minister of State (MoS) for Health and Family Welfare Ashwini Kumar Choubey told the Lok Sabha in February 2021 that 12 medical colleges (nine government + three private) were established between 2018-2020.

On the same day, responding to a separate question, Choubey said that “establishment of 27 new medical colleges have been approved in Uttar Pradesh, as proposed by the state”.

 Thus, while all the other accomplishments of the Yogi government are deemed to be true and his performance as a Chief Minister has been exceptionally good  and praiseworthy but a few of the aforementioned claims by the Home Minister do not match with the actual found data.

Recently, a purported newspaper clip has gone viral amid the Lok Sabha election which claims to be the reason why Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s father passed away. The article also carried a popular photo of young Narendra Modi in a National Cadet Corps uniform. According to the excerpt Modi at a very tender age, stole gold from him and for which he got a cardiac arrest and passed away. The article in the newspaper is headlined in Hindi,which when translated reads, ‘Narendra Modi’s brothers and sister blame him for their father’s death’. Even in the recent past a news resurfaced which claimed the PM to be ‘kleptomaniac’.

The article reads that Modi’s father, Damodardas Mulchand Modi, used to make ends meet by pickpocketing and stealing coal and iron from a railway station where he worked as a tea seller. He traded the stolen items for gold, which, in turn, were stolen by Modi when he was young. His father, unable to cope with his son’s actions, suffered a cardiac arrest. The family could not get back the stolen gold despite lodging an FIR and Damodardas subsequently died because the family couldn’t afford the medical expenses. The story also claims that former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee suppressed the case and dismissed an FIR against Modi in 1996.

This went massively viral on the social media sites. A Facebook user Vikay Jat shared this post in Hindi, and its English translation reads, “Prahlad Modi said that Narendra Modi ran away from home after stealing jewellery.”
The same newspaper clip was shared by Daman and Diu Congress Sevaldal on Twitter on July 21, 2020.

Similar news resurfaced back in 2017 where Velaram M Patel was claimed to be a member of Congress as per his Facebook bio.

On getting in touch with PM’s family to check the fact, the family refuted the claims and younger brother Prahlad Modi, dismissed the claims and said that no one in the family had filed an FIR against the prime minister, as the clipping suggested. He said, “This is completely false,” he added, our father died in 1989 of bone cancer. Narendra was an RSS pracharak at the time and was home for father’s funeral.”

His elder brother Soma Modi said, “My father had bone cancer and died in 1989.” He added that Narendra Modi was at Kailash Mansarovar Yatra at the time. “Narendra came back home and gave father prasad from Mansarovar. Father passed away the next day,” he continued.

Prime Minister’s biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay was also contacted, who gave deep insights to the statements of PM Modi’s family. “To the best of my knowledge and the conversations I’ve had Mr Modi during the time I was researching for my book, he’d said that his father died in 1989-90.”

According to the excerpts from Mukhopadhyay’s biography of PM Modi – ‘Narendra Modi: The Man, the Times’ Narendra Modi left his village and broke away from his family in 1967. He came home for a few hours in 1989 when his father passed away.

According to a Times of India report, in 2018, PM Modi once during one a political speech referred to his father and stated, “who died 30 years ago”.

Thus, it is clear that the newspaper clipping claiming that PM Modi’s siblings hold him guilty for their father’s demise and that their father died of a heart attack is fake. His siblings were clearly heard stating that their father died of bone cancer in 1989, and Narendra Modi was born in 1950 and would’ve been nearly 40 years of age at his father’s demise.Therefore, the viral news is fake.

Several Bharatiya Janata Party leaders including Kapil Mishra, BJP’s Youth National Secretary Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga and BJP Delhi’s social media-in-charge Naveen Kumar Jindal shared a morphed image and took a dig at the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for ‘congratulating himself for installing 10 dustbins.’ Priorly, both the parties i.e.., Aam Aadmi Party and Bharatiya Janata Party have traded barbs and accused each other of spending crores on publicity rather than carrying out public works.

Hence, a morphed image of the CM is going viral with where in a hoarding a message is featured by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal praising his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led government for installing dustbins in Kirtinagar Industrial Area is viral on social media.

The viral image exhibits the hoarding which appears to be a metro station at Delhi. The text on the hoarding reads is in Hindi, which when translated reads, “Congratulations Delhi — ten new dustbins have been installed in Kirti Nagar Industrial Area.”

The post went massively viral on other social media platforms including Facebook and was widely shared by netizens.

Firstly, upon checking the comments section of the tweets with the viral image, many replies on tweets were found, which told that the viral picture has been edited. A few netizens also posted a purported original picture of the banner, which contained an advertisement by the Delhi government about the financial help provided to families who lost their loved ones to COVID-19.

Furthermore, fact-checker ‘SM Hoaxslayer’ found that the Twitter handle “@drapr007” had tweeted a high resolution (2048×2048 pixels) image of the viral hoarding. On looking closely at the high-resolution image, several discrepancies were found in the viral image. It seemed like the original words had been photo-shopped by mixing the blue background of the hoarding. Parts of the original word can be seen in the far left corner of the picture. Apart from this, there is no reflection of light on the word ‘Ho’ appearing on the hoarding, which makes it clear that it has been digitally added to that part of the picture.

On looking closely, one can also spot that the text is not aligned parallel to the edge of the banner border. Another notable difference is that when one zooms in on the image, the difference in the sharpness between the text and the Delhi Government logo can be seen. Also, the difference between the shade of white in both is quite clear and obvious, which proves the text is not a part of the banner and has been added digitally.
Also, the original banner was also spotted in another metro station, which made it more obvious. Moreover, the Times Of India newspaper dated July 9, 2021, had a similar image advertised, with the same photograph of Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal.

Several original billboards were also spotted here and there in the city, and hence, it became quite clear that the viral image was created by using editing tools. Thus, it clear that the viral billboard featuring Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal is morphed to show the party is congratulating and praising themselves for installing 10 dustbins in Delhi. Previously, another hoarding was also morphed of AAP’s Gujarat, claiming Gujarat will offer Namaz and Hindu rituals should be abandoned.

Amid all the major rumors regarding the Tokyo Olympics, another such news caught attention when netizens started raising their voice against the ‘absurdness of education policy’ which began following a post where the image reads the name of an educational institute as ‘Rajnikant Medical College of Engineering For Commerce & Arts’. Netizens shared the photo of the college entrance questioning the kind of subjects that will be taught in this institute.

The claim along with the image reads: ‘This is India’s new education policy. Can anybody explain what exactly is taught in this college’.

Entrepreneur Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw on August 1 tweeted this old morphed image of the management college which had been sarcastically renamed as ‘Rajinikanth Medical College of Engineering for Commerce and Arts’ after the Indian actor Rajinikanth. The image went viral with ‘can anybody explain what exactly is taught in this college?’ written over it. Mazumdar-Shaw tweeted the image with exclamation marks.

Another user also tweeted the same image, in which several students were seen entering the “Rajnikant Medical College of Engineering for Commerce & Arts”. A user commented that it is the world’s best college. Similarly, several other netizens enthusiastically shared the viral image believing that such a college offers diverse courses under one roof existed.

However, in this era of anomalous peculiarities, it was for a moment hard to figure out the authenticity of this viral image and a few netizens whether sarcastically or not believed this institution to the real. Thus to confirm the fact, a fact check was performed, as not everything we see or perceive is real.

On performing a reverse image search on the viral image an article was found by The Indian Express that was published on 22 March which carried a wider angle of the viral image. As per which the image was clicked when the state government under the orders of the Chief Minister Naveen Pattnaik imposed and the put the state under strict lockdown battling with COVID-19. The state adjudicated and sealed a business school in Bhubneshwar after 45 students tested positive.

The caption along with the image mentioned that it showed the Xavier Institute of Management (XIMB) in Odisha’s Bhubaneswar and attributed the photo to Wikimedia Commons. Further, on searching the website of Wikimedia Commons an image was found that had been uploaded on 16 February 2012.

On comparing the viral image with the original one, several similar elements were found such as the people who can be seen entering the campus. However, the name of the college in the original photo had been morphed to add ‘Rajnikant Medical College of Engineering For Commerce & Arts’ in the viral one.

Memes in the name of versatile actor, Rajinikanth are not a new thing on social media as several fan pages and accounts operating in the superstar’s name share them often. A Facebook page was also found by the name Rajnikanth’s Medical College of Engineering for Commerce which shares such memes.
Thus, the viral image is morphed and no such educational institute exists in real. Furthermore, the original image is from the Xavier Institute of Management (XIMB) from Bhubneshwar, Odisha.

Ever since the onset of the Tokyo Olympics, PM Modi is surprisingly linked to every minor event whether related or not. Another such rumor made it to the list as recently an image went viral on social media which claims to show that a banner seen at the felicitation function for weightlifter Mirabai Chanu, after she clinched ‘silver’ at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the win. Chanu can be seen on stage along with several ministers including Union Sports Minister Anurag Singh Thakur and Minister for Law and Justice Minister Kiren Rijiju. The photo went viral with a caption which translates to, “Look at the back photo and read what is written once. Has Meera Bai Chanu brought the medal with hard work or has Modi ji brought it. If so, Modi ji can get medals to all Indian players.”

On July 24, 2021, Chanu won India its first medal on the first day of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics by lifting a combined weight of 202 kg in the women’s 49 kg event to win silver. The fake banner has an added text in Hindi that reads, “Felecetation of Tokoyo Olympics Silver medalist Mirabai Chanu, Thank you Modiji for helping Mirabai Chanu win the medal”.
To check the fair dinkum of this random claim, reverse image search was performed, and a press release was found which was published on Press Information Bureau (PIB) on 27 July. The report carried the original image in which the text crediting PM Narendra Modi for the Olympic medal couldn’t be seen.

On comparing the viral image with the original one, several similar elements were found such as the positioning of people. However, there was a stark difference in the text that was used in the two. The blank space seen in the original image was used to add the text mentioned in the viral one.

Further, news channel DD News broadcast a bulletin that was uploaded on their YouTube handle on 26 July, in which Rijiju can be heard speaking from 10:03 minutes.

Meanwhile in an interview, Chanu thanked everyone and said, “I was able to win this medal because of the prayers and love of the people of India. I wish all young people especially girls who have entered sports to make the country proud. I dedicate my medal to the people of the country. I thank the prime minister and sports minister for encouraging me,” after returning to India on Monday. Recalling her journey after Rio Olympics, Chanu also added, “All my hopes and dreams were shattered after failing to win a medal in Rio Olympics. I had to make a comeback in weightlifting again. But later I realized that I can still do something for India. I worked hard, dealt with injuries and other difficulties and focused on my training. Because of all the hard work, today I reached this point.”

When asked what she would like to do for youth, especially young girls from northeast India, the Olympics medalist said she would help in training the upcoming athletes.

“People of Northeast India know very little about sports right now. I will work to give recognition to the small state of Manipur by training youth, especially young girls,” added the athlete.

Thus, the viral claim is not true as a morphed image was shared by several social media users claiming to show a banner thanking Prime Minister Narendra Modi for India’s first medal at the ongoing Tokyo Olympics. Previously, another such claim was debunked where a morphed image of the popular news channel Aaj Tak went viral crediting PM Modi for all the winnings in the Tokyo Olympics.

A morphed graphic went viral as per which, Hindi News channel, ‘Aaj Tak’ credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for India’s first medal in 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The text on the viral graphic, which had the photo of anchor Sweta Singh and PM Modi, said was captioned in Hindi, which when translated reads: PM Modi made India win the first Olympic medal.

Believing the viral claim to be true, several netizens are massively sharing and heavily criticising the channel. This image has been widely circulated after weightlifter Mirabai Chanu bagged the silver medal in the women’s 49 kg event on 24 July 2021. On the first day of the Games, Chanu lifted a total of 202 kg and registered India’s first win.

The graphic comprises of a picture of popular anchor Shweta Singh and PM Modi. The text on the graphic says ‘PM Modi won the first Olympic medal’. Twitter user Gareeshma Shukla while sharing this graphic wrote, “If bootlicking were an Olympic sport, Shweta Singh would bring gold for Modi”.

To check the authenticity of the fact, a reverse image search was conducted. The reverse image search led to a Facebook post of Aaj Tak posted on July, 2019 and the post had a graphic with a picture of anchor Shweta Singh and PM Modi, saying, ‘Will PM Modi win the World Cup?’ This program was broadcasted when the Indian men’s cricket team was playing in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 which was held in the United Kingdom.

The graphic was posted on the day India was supposed to play the semi-final match against New Zealand in the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup. India lost the match and failed to go to the finals.

Furthermore, on comparing the viral image with the original one, we found that the former had the text edited and three medals – gold, silver, and bronze – were superimposed on the symbol of the cricket world cup.

Upon the show ‘Khabardar’ on Aaj Tak’s YouTube channel and found that the channel did a show on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics on 24 July, however, the show was hosted by anchor Chitra Tripathi and not Sweta Singh. Also, the show did not carry the viral photo.

Thus, the viral claim is false and not related to the Tokyo Olympics in any way. The picture of the old promo of Hindi news channel Aaj Tak has been edited and shared with the wrong claim. Chanu Saikhom Mirabai is India’s sole medal winner at the Tokyo Olympics 2020 till now. While she was conferred with a silver medal and a memorable podium tribute for her achievement, the medal doesn’t accompany any official cash prize from the International Olympic Committee.

As is the custom with nations that send athletes to Olympics, Chanu’s effort will be rewarded with cash prize from her home country. Union Minister for Railways Ashwini Viashnaw announced a Rs 2 crore reward for Chanu. Manipur Chief Minister M Biren Singh announced a Rs 1 crore reward while Indian Olympics Association added a Rs 10 lakh reward to further the Olympian’s winnings.

Recently, eight innocent lives were lost and another 17 went missing after a cloudburst hit a remote village in Kishtwar district of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday, officials said. As a result, the water level of the Chenab river increased in the Reasi district. Hence, the gates of Salal Dam have been opened. Among those who were injured, five of them were taken to Kishtwar town for treatment. According to sources, 19 residential houses and 21 cowsheds were damaged. The rescue operation has been temporarily halted due to heavy rain.

On receiving the information about the cloudburst, local police immediately rushed to the spot and started the rescue operation. The personnel of SDRF were also mobilized from Kishtwar to augment the rescue operation team.

Further Army Jawans also joined the rescue operation. SSP Kishtwar Shri Shafqat Hussain also reached the spot and is leading the rescue operation.

Cloudbursts, are a sudden phenomena, followed by very heavy rainfall, usually local in nature and of brief duration. Most so-called cloudbursts occur in connection with thunderstorms. In these storms there are violent uprushes of air, which at times prevent the condensing raindrops from falling to the ground. A large amount of water may thus accumulate at high levels, and if the upward currents are weakened the whole of this water-falls at one time.

Cloudbursts are especially common in mountainous areas. This is probably because the warm air currents of a thunderstorm tend to follow the upward slope of a mountain. The effects of heavy rain are especially striking on mountain slopes because the falling water is concentrated in valleys and gulleys. Mountain cloudbursts cause sudden and destructive floods. The intensity of rainfall in the most severe cloudbursts can only be conjectured.

Meanwhile, following this, an image went wildly viral which claims to be from Kishtwar. The claim shared along with the photo said that 40 people are reported missing after a cloudburst in Kishtwar district of Jammu and four bodies have been recovered.  But, upon conducting a reverse image search, it was found that several news regarding the same pointed out that this viral image is from 2016 Uttarakhand flood.

According to a story published on India Today, about 30 people were feared dead from different areas of Uttarakhand after cloudbursts hit in Pithoragarh and Chamoli districts of the state. The report also carried the same viral photo, which was credited to news agency ANI.

Upon using the advanced search feature on Twitter, a tweet was found by ANI which had the photo that is now being circulated as that from Jammu and Kashmir.

The caption read: “River Alaknanda rises above the danger level mark after a cloudburst in Chamoli district, Uttarakhand.”

Thus, it is clear that the viral image is not from the recent calamity.

Kishtwar’s senior police superintendent Shafqat Bhat said they believe 30 to 40 people were in the village at the time of the cloud burst. He added bridges have been washed away in the area and a river there is in full spate. Bhat said Honjar is around 50km from Kishtwar district headquarters.

In a tweet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the Centre is closely monitoring the situation. “…in the wake of the cloudbursts in #Kishtwar and #Kargil (Ladakh). All possible assistance is being made available in the affected areas. I pray for everyone’s safety and well-being.”

Union home minister Amit Shah said saving as many lives as possible is the priority. “I have spoken to the LG (Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha) & DGP (director general of police) of Jammu & Kashmir regarding the cloudburst in Kishtwar. SDRF, Army & local administration are carrying out the rescue operation. NDRF is also reaching there.”

Officials said SDRF teams were sent to the area from Doda, Udhampur, and Jammu while a team of NDRF and SDRF each were on standby in Srinagar. SDRF commandant VK Singh said a police team left for the scene on foot. “The area is in the upper reaches of Kishtwar, not accessible by road. Jammu SDRF is on standby. The weather is inclement. One team of SDRF from Srinagar is ready to be airlifted,” said Singh.