An image showing Bollywood actor Deepika Padukone wearing a T-shirt supporting farmers is being circulated with the claim she wore the outfit when the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) questioned her on Saturday, 26 September, in connection with the investigation into a drug angle in Sushant Singh Rajput’s death.
However, the viral image is photoshopped and the original photo, that dates back to 2018, does not show any text written on it. Meanwhile, the actor was actually seen wearing a pastel brown palazzo suit as she arrived for the questioning on Saturday.
CLAIM
The claim shared along with the image reads: “When you report for questioning to the NCB, because you stood in solidarity with JNU... and carry swag on your T-shirt... (sic)”
‘I stand with Indian farmers’ can be seen written on Deepika’s T-shirt in the viral image. This comes in the backdrop of nationwide farmers’ protests after the Parliament passed the contentious farm bills.
Several social media users have shared the image on Facebook and Twitter.
The Quint also received a query on the claim made in the image on its WhatsApp tipline.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We did a Google reverse image search and found the original image in an article published in The Indian Express in March 2018.
The photo has been credited to photographer Varinder Chawla and captioned as: “Deepika Padukone was also seen coming out of the airport.”
We found that Bollywood photographer Viral Bhayani had also uploaded a set of images on 17 March 2018, showing Deepika in the same outfit.
We compared the viral image with the 2018 image and found similarities, but with no text written on Deepika’s outfit in the latter.
The Bollywood actor was actually seen wearing a pastel brown coloured palazzo suit as she arrived for questioning by the NCB on 26 September.
Evidently, an old image has been edited to claim that Deepika Padukone wore a T-shirt extending support to farmers on the day NCB questioned her.
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