A notification purportedly issued by the Jammu and Kashmir government is doing the rounds on social media claiming that panchayat elections have been announced in the state after November.
What are the facts?: The notification is fake. No such announcement for the panchayat elections in Jammu and Kashmir has been made by the government.
Discrepancies in the viral image: On going through the notification, we found several spelling mistakes such as "eection", "pacilitate", and "announcoment".
These discrepancies indicated towards the possibility of the viral image being a fake one.
No information in public domain: We checked the official website of J&K's Rural Development Department and Panchayati Raj, however, we did not find any such government notification that talked about panchayat elections.
Further, there were no news reports about the announcement of elections.
A comparison: Team WebQoof compared a notification issued in 2018 announcing the panchayat elections to the viral image and found a glaring difference.
The notification in 2018 was signed by the Chief Election Officer of J&K and not the secretary to government (Rural Development Department and Panchayati Raj) as seen in the viral image.
CMO clarifies: The official X handle of J&K Chief Minister's Office clarified that the viral notification is fake. The post shared on 5 August was captioned, "Fake news alert".
Conclusion: Evidently, the notification is fabricated and no such announcement for panchayat elections has been made for J&K.
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