Fact Check: Kejriwal isn’t accused in 1980s rape case. Newspaper clip on social media is fake

The fake newspaper clip had also resurfaced in the run-up to the Delhi Assembly Elections that was held on 8 February 2020.

Credit: BOOM

A newspaper clipping, purportedly published by The Telegraph on 8 June 1987 with the headline ‘IIT student accused of rape’ has resurfaced online. The report claims that the student was now Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

It further mentions that the survivor lodged a complaint against Kejriwal at a local police station. An excerpt from the story reads, “The prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) campus was shocked with the news of one of its students being accused of raping a local girl. The student has been detained by the police and taken for questioning after police visited the campus and found him hiding in his hostel room. Police said that the student, a 19 years old boy named Arvind Kejriwal, had gone out with friends on Friday night for a party but didn’t return to the hostel.”

BOOM had previously debunked the same claim in January 2020 when it was viral ahead of the assembly elections in Delhi. We found that the news article was fake, and created using an online newspaper clip generator. 

The newspaper clip states that Kejriwal had been detained by the local police after the girl lodged a complaint. The dateline of the news report is Kharagpur. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader graduated from the IIT Kharagpur with a B Tech degree in the 1980s. 

The fake newspaper clip had resurfaced in the run up to the Delhi Assembly Elections that was held on 8 February 2020. Upon relevant keyword searches on Facebook, we found that the clip went viral in 2016 as well, which was debunked by The Quint.

We received the clip on the helpline number for verification as well.

Fact Check 

BOOM was able to ascertain that the newspaper clip was not credible as there were discrepancies in the style sheet of the article. Upon relevant keyword searches, we came across an online newspaper clip generator that was used to generate this article. Newspaper clips with desired mast heads, headline and dates can be generated through the website. BOOM tried creating a news clip on the website, and noticed that the text in the third column remains the same for all the clips. Below is a comparison of the news report on Kejriwal and the clip created by BOOM, which shows that the text of the third column is identical.

We also looked up Kejriwal’s affidavit, submitted to the Election Commission of India. According to the document, Kejriwal has stated that he has not been convicted for any criminal offence. BOOM reached out to Delhi Police, who declined to comment. In fact, the same newspaper clipping generator website was used to create a fake news report about Congress chief Rahul Gandhi possessing banned drugs and unaccounted cash.

This story was originally published by BOOM, as part of the Shakti Collective. Except for the headline, excerpt and introduction para, this story has not been edited by ThePrint staff.