CLAIM
A photo of self-proclaimed labour leader and social activist Vinay Dubey, standing with a man and a woman, is being shared with the claim that his mother married a Muslim man (his father) named Mahmood.
Dubey is the activist who was arrested by Mumbai police for allegedly inciting the migrant labourers who flouted the lockdown norms and gathered outside the Mumbai Bandra Terminus on 14 April. He has now been remanded to police custody till 21 April.
The post on Facebook had 12,000 likes and 19,000 shares at the time this story was written.
Many other people shared the photo on Facebook with either the same message or a shorter version of it, all claiming that Dubey’s father’s name was Mahmood.
The same post was also viral on Twitter.
A user by the name of Shiv Yadav shared the photo and the viral message on Twitter. His post had 1,800 likes at the time this story was written.
However, in the Twitter thread, he later clarified that it was not true and provided the correct information.
Many others also shared the same post on Twitter.
TRUE OR FALSE?
The viral message being shared with the photo is false. Dubey’s father’s name is Jatashankar Dubey and not Mahmood, as the message claims. Moreover, the photo shared with the message is from a CAA protest and is being shared out of context.
WHAT WE FOUND
On searching for details about Dubey, we came across the MyNeta website which carried details of candidates of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Run by the Association for Democratic Reforms, the page stated personal details as submitted by Dubey.
According to the information given by him, his father’s name is Jatashankar.
Dubey had contested the Lok Sabha elections from Kalyan independently and had lost.
Further, we came across a tweet by National Congress Party’s Anil Deshmukh from 10 April, where he said that Jatashankar Dubey, an auto driver from Airoli in Mumbai had donated Rs 25,000 towards the Maharashtra CM’s coronavirus relief fund.
Dubey shared this tweet, stating that this was his father, who had donated his entire life savings towards the effort to fight coronavirus.
We also came across more photos of the same day, where Dubey himself can also be seen along with his father and Deshmukh.
According to an article by Amar Ujala, written after they contacted him in Mumbai, Jatashankar originally hails from Harinarayanpur village in Aurai area of Bhadohi district in Uttar Pradesh.
So, what about the photo seen in the post? We found that the photo was from a CAA protest that Dubey had attended in Patna’s Sabzibagh, according to the caption.
The photo had been uploaded on 8 February. It is likely to be taken with people present at the protest and not his father, who we have seen in the photos as shown above.
Therefore, a completely false message is doing the rounds with a photo taken out of context in order to claim that Vinay Dubey is actually Muslim, but is fooling people everywhere.
(With inputs from SM HoaxSlayer)
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