A video showing Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath lashing out at a camera person from news wire ANI (Asian News International ) has gone viral with claims that the chief minister was caught on camera using an expletive.
The viral clip shows the chief minister giving a sound byte to an ANI journalist after the former received his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine COVAXIN on Monday morning.
In the video, Adityanath thanks the country's scientists before getting distracted by a disturbance in the background. The UP chief minister then lowers his voice and can be heard allegedly saying, "kya karte ho ch*tiyapane ka..." with the words trailing off.
The clip was also picked up by the Aam Aadami Party's Twitter handle.
Several right wing users retorted claiming the video is "fake", "dubbed over" and "edited". A website named BreakingTube.com was one of the first to call the video fake.
A video uploaded to ANI's official YouTube feed does not contain the alleged abusive word.
Right wing website OpIndia relied on a tweet by NewsNation TV anchor Deepak Chaurasia who in turn called the video 'edited' and said the last three seconds of the clip were tampered with.
Click here to view an archive of OpIndia's story.
Another right wing social media outlet Social Tamasha created a two-window comparison of the viral video with the video shared by ANI UP and claimed it was fake.
However, the Twitter users who shared the earlier video pointed out that the two videos show different angles, different sentences spoken by the CM and therefore is not the same.
Also Read: Old Video Of Yogi Adityanath Announcing Lockdown In 15 Districts Revived
FACT-CHECK
ANI UP Tweets Video With Editor's Note
BOOM found a tweet by ANI UP which had the UP CM's byte along with an Editor's note saying, "Earlier issued Live Sound byte is retracted." However, the agency did not clarify what exactly was retracted.
We reached out to Ishaan Prakash, Editor at ANI, about the viral video. Prakash directed us to ANI UP's tweet and declined to comment further.
"See the tweet we put out from ANI UP. I'm not making any more comments," Ishaan Prakash told BOOM.
Sources At Three News Channels Confirm Video Is Not Fake
BOOM spoke to sources at three news channels who confirmed that they did receive the retracted ANI video in the morning after 8 am. But ANI later sent them a note retracting the video and provided a revised video carrying the chief minister's statement that is now playing on all the channels. The individuals spoke on condition of anonymity.
Live Feed On YouTube Shows Video Is Not Fake
BOOM went through the live feeds of several news channels on YouTube and found that the viral clip had indeed been played out.
A live feed of ABP Ganga which is the Uttar Pradesh outlet of ABP News played the now viral video.
The channel played the video even while its reporter was speaking. Watch the live feed below at 8:09 am on the channel's clock.
The channel hits black as the video is cut abruptly.
Live feeds on YouTube that are still playing LIVE cannot be edited.
One can view the same at the 6.00 minutes timestamp in the video below which was uploaded later on the ABP Ganga channel.
We also found another live feed by News 18 UP Uttarakhand channel, where the video was also played. Watch the live feed below at 8:10:40 am on the channel's clock.
Another video by First India News Rajasthan shows the same clip at the 2.10 YouTube counter.
BOOM found no evidence to suggest the viral clip has been tampered with and the subsequent byte played by news channels without the word appear to be a retake.
We also found that the 'fact-checks' by OpIndia and BreakingTube.com to be incorrect and false.
Note: Following the publication of BOOM's story ABP Ganga made its YouTube video private. The story has been updated to replace deleted videos and include News18 UP Uttarakhand's video.
Also Read: Fake Letter Claims PM Wrote To Yogi Adityanath About A Hindu Rashtra