New Delhi: A clipping of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is going viral on various social media platforms with the claims that he said if actor Salman Khan apologises, Lawrence Bishnoi and the Bishnoi community will forgive him.
Vishvas News investigated the viral post and found it to be fake.
Yogi did not make any such statement and the viral clip has been made by editing the video of a programme on ABP News. The original video is from 23 March, 2024, where the CM put forth his views on all issues, including elections in a special programme of ABP News, Manifesto.
What is going viral?
Facebook user Satyapal Fouzdar (Archive) posted a 27-second clip on 7 November, 2024, with the claim, “Salman should apologise and the matter will end #Lawrence Bishnoi will forgive: Yogi Adityanath.”
Investigation
Vishvas News analysed the viral clip of Yogi Adityanath carefully. At the 27-second mark, he can be heard saying, “Who is not worried about Salman? He is getting a house. He is getting food. He is getting medical treatment, but he should also follow the law of India. He should follow the law of India. The country will run according to the Constitution. Shariat can be our personal matter, but Shariat cannot be bigger than the Constitution. And he should follow this. People of India.”
Based on this information, Vishvas News conducted a keyword search. We did not find any news where CM Yogi made any statement about Salman Khan and Lawrence Bishnoi, as claimed in the viral post.
After this, we extracted several keyframes of the viral clip and searched for them using Google Lens. We found the original video on the YouTube channel of ABP News, uploaded on 23 March, 2024, and saw that in the channel’s special programme, the CM expressed his views on all issues including elections. He announced that he will start the Lok Sabha election campaign from the city of Krishna, Mathura.
In this video, CM Yogi was talking about Muslims while answering the questions of the ABP News anchor. CM’s answer can be heard at the 38:53-minute mark, where he was talking about Muslims. The beginning of his statement was Salman khan sorry
Amar Ujala.com also published a news report on CM Yogi’s interview on 24 March, 2024. The report reads that in response to a question about concern for Muslims, CM Yogi said, “Who does not care about Muslims? They are getting houses. They are getting food. But, they should also follow the law of India. Respect the Constitution of India. Sharia cannot be bigger than the Constitution. If Muslims accept this, then the people of India will give them respect.”
During the investigation, Vishvas News contacted BJP’s social media team’s state co-convenor, Shashi Kumar, who confirmed that the Chief Minister has not made any such statement about Salman Khan, as claimed in the viral clip. The news related to a programme on a private channel has been edited and misrepresented.
Concluding our investigation, we reviewed the profile of the user who shared the misleading post. We found that the user, named Satyapal Fouzdar has over 47,000 followers on Facebook.
Conclusion: Vishvas News’ investigation revealed that the viral video of CM Yogi Adityanath was edited. In March 2024, he made a statement about Muslims in a conversation with a news channel. A portion of this video was edited and made viral with a false claim.
This story was originally published by Vishwas News as part of the Shakti Collective. Apart from the headline, excerpt and introduction, this story has not been edited by ThePrint staff.
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