A viral image shared by an imposter account of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed that he performed “Ram Abhishek” – a form of prayer in which a devotee pours a liquid offering on a deity – with UK’s “home minister” on 5 August.
However, we found that it is an old image from 2019 when Boris Johnson had visited a temple in London’s Neasden to perform abhishek of Shri Nilkanth Varni.
CLAIM
The tweet shared by the imposter account had garnered over 76,000 likes and 17,400 retweets at the time of publishing the article.
The tweet read: “I'm a big fan of Indian Culture So I Did "SHRI RAM ABHISHEK" With Our Home minister at my Residence On 5th of August.”
Several social media users circulated the image on Facebook and Twitter with similar narrative.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
Firstly, the account that has tweeted the image is an imposter account of Boris Johnson. The Twitter bio of this account mentions that it is an unofficial one and just a fan club of the said prime minister.
Other red flags include the follower base the fake account has as compared to the official one. Further, the fake account is not a verified Twitter handle and was made only in July while the official one was created in 2015.
WHAT IS THE CONTEXT OF THE VIRAL IMAGE?
We did a Google reverse image search and found a Facebook post by the Conservative Party shared in 2019 that had the viral image.
The post mentioned that the UK PM had visited the Hindu temple of Neasden in London.
We, then, ran a keyword search on Google using words “boris johnson temple neasden 2019” and found an article published by BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha.
BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir is a temple located in London’s Neasden. The article carried an image similar to the viral image with a caption: “The Prime Minister and Home Secretary also performed an abhishek of Shri Nilkanth Varni.”
The official handles of Boris Johnson and Neasden Temple had, too, tweeted out images in December 2019 with the same context.
The UK PM had visited the temple along with Home Secretary Priti Patel.
Several Indian media outlets including The Quint, The Indian Express, Livemint had published articles on the said visit.
Evidently, an old image of UK Prime Minister visiting a Hindu temple in London is being shared with a false claim that he performed “Ram abhishek” on 5 August.
(With inputs from SM Hoax Slayer)
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