Fake Bulletin Used To Claim BJP’s Patra Said ‘Gas Is Expensive, Not Cylinder’

The bulletin has been digitally created using an online news generator template.

Fact-check : The claim states that Sambit Patra said that the cylinder's price is not increasing and only the gas price is hiking.

(Photo: The Quint)

As the cooking gas and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) prices were hiked on 6 July 2022 by Rs 50 per cylinder, a quote purportedly by Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) national spokesperson Sambit Patra is going viral on social media.

The image showing a 'breaking news' banner displays a quote which reads, "Only the prices of gas has increased, not of the cylinder."

The image of the bulletin is being used to take a dig at the party's spokesperson. However, we found that the image had been digitally created using a template called ‘Break your own news’.

CLAIM

The quote seen in the viral posts says in Hindi, “Only gas has gotten more expensive, not the cylinders themselves.”

An archived version of the post can be seen here. 

Similar claims can be seen here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We ran a reverse image search on the viral image and found a Twitter post from 21 February 2020 by BJP's official handle.

The tweet was about Patra commenting on All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi and it carried the same photo as the viral image.

The search also led us to an article published by Hindi daily Amar Ujala on 21 February 2020. The report carried the same image of Patra which has now been used in the bulletin.

We also found a Facebook live video from the same date and the screenshot seen in the viral post was taken on 5:04 timestamp from this video.

Comparison between the bulletin viral image and the video.

Further, the viral bulletin identifies Sambit Patra as 'Sandeep Patra'.

The viral image mispells Patra's name.

BULLETIN CREATED USING ONLINE TOOL

The image has been created using a template called ‘Break your own news’, a site which identifies itself as a ‘Breaking News Generator’. The template lets the users edit an image which looks like a 'Breaking News' photo.

We created a sample image on ‘Break your own news’ template.

Clearly, an edited image was linked to Sambit Patra claiming that he made remarks about the cylinder's price not increasing and the gas price hiking.

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