Fact Check

Viral Pic Of The 'Chaiiwala' Signboard With Abhinandan Is Fake

BOOM reached out to the 'chaiiwala' restaurant in London which said the image was fake.

By - Sumit Usha | 7 March 2019 5:08 PM IST

A viral image of the 'Chaiiwala' restaurant in London sporting a sketch of Indian Air Force Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman drinking tea, is photoshopped.

The fake image has gone viral with a Hindi caption that translates to, 'A Modi-fan in Britain has named his coffee shop 'Chaiiwala' and has displayed wing commander Abhinandan's photo making it look all the more spectacular.'

(Translated from Hindi text - ब्रिटेन में मोदी के एक प्रशंसक ने अपनी कॉफीशॉप का नाम "चायवाला" रखा है और उसे विंग कमांडर अभिनंदन की तस्वीर के साथ चार चाँद लगा दिए) |

BOOM found several Facebook pages and Twitter handles sharing the photoshopped picture.

The original post can be seen here and its archived version can be accessed here.

Viral post


The same image tweeted


Twitter-users fell for the same image
The same image is viral from several pages on Facebook

FACT CHECK

BOOM got in touch with the people running the Chaiiwala restaurant. In their response through email, the restaurant denied the claim and told us that the image was photoshopped.

A reverse image search led us to a few URLs carrying the same picture sans Wing Commander Abhinandan's image on the cafe's signboard.

Comparing the photoshopped and original image

We also matched the address of the outlet carrying the photoshopped image of Abhinandan with Chaiiwala outlets in London and found that they were one and the same.

The store location on Chaiiwala's website
Store location on tripadvisor. The same image has been photoshopped

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