Viral posts claiming a stone was hurled at Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his roadshow in Ahmedabad, Gujarat are false.
BOOM spoke to the Gujarat police who denied such an incident and said that a stone was not hurled and all posts claiming the same are fake. The police added while there is no evidence to suggest a stone was hurled, they were investigating whether a mobile phone was accidentally thrown at the PM's convoy with the flowers being showered at him.
A Bharatiya Janata Party stronghold, Gujarat is seeing intense campaigning from both the ruling party and the new entrant to the state Aam Aadmi Party. Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a 50 kilometre long road show on Friday along with several rallies in the state accompanied by Amit Shah and other BJP leaders.
Gujarat Samachar, a news daily in the state published a report making the same false claim. The report said that when Modi was near Lal Darwaja area in Ahmedabad, he was pelted with a stone by someone in the crowd and the person was later arrested.
The story was soon deleted by Gujarat Samachar but a cached version of the same can be seen below.
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A series of posts on Facebook have also shared the false claim with the caption in Gujarati that translates to, "Narendra Modi was pelted with near Lal Darwaja, Ahmedabad, during his roadshow"
(Original text in Gujarati: "અમદાવાદમાં વડાપ્રધાન નરેન્દ્રભાઈ મોદીના રોડ શો દરમિયાન લાલ દરવાજા પાસે તેમની મોટર ઉપર પથ્થર ફેકવામાં આવ્યો."
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The claim has also been shared on Twitter.
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the claim is false and that no stone was pelted at Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his roadshow in Ahmedabad.
We ran a keyword search of the incident and found a news report by Ahmedabad Mirror online which reported that a person attending the roadshow was trying to throw flowers at Modi's cavalcade and accidentally threw his phone instead. The report explained that this incident triggered false rumours about a stone being hurled at the prime minister.
The report further explains the incident and says that the SPG (Special Protection Group) personnel were alerted when they heard the sound of an object hitting the PM's car and after investigation, found that the object was a phone thrown by a young man. The report also said that the person was a BJP worker who was showering flowers at the Prime Minister. The report quoted Ashish Bhatia, Gujarat Director General of Police as the source for the information.
BOOM then reached out to Neeraj Badgujar, ACP (sector-1) Ahmedabad City, who refuted the viral claim and said, "There was no stone pelting. Reports claiming such (an incident) are false." When asked if a mobile was thrown at convoy, Badgujar said, "Further investigation is still going on (about) whether a mobile was flung (at PM Modi). Nobody has been detained yet."
Additionally, we did not find any statement from BJP saying a stone was pelted at the Prime Minister or his convoy during his road show in Ahmedabad.