While addressing the Lok Sabha on February 6, 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi cited an article from satire website Faking News to attribute a fake quote to Omar Abdullah on the abrogation of Article 370.
According to Modi, Abdullah had said that the abrogation of Article 370 will bring an earthquake, that will separate Kashmir from India.
Between Satire And Misinformation
In the following Youtube video, at the 01:09:35 mark, while speaking about the separatist sentiments of Kashmiri leaders (currently in detention), the prime minister can be heard quoting Omar Abdullah as saying, "If Article 370 is abrogated, an earthquake will come that will separate Kashmir from India.
The official Twitter handle of the Bharatiya Janata Party also put out a tweet quoting Modi's speech where he mentions the false quote.
BOOM did a relevant keyword search and could not find a single news report that carried such a quote by Abdullah. However, we did find an article by satire page Faking News published on May 28, 2014, which had this headline: "Removing Article 370 will cause earthquakes separating Kashmir from India: Omar Abdullah."
The rest of the article went on to detail how Abdullah believes he is in possession of a stone that tells him a secret prophecy about an earthquake that shall arrive and separate India and Kashmir upon the abrogation of Article 370.
Faking News is a Network18 website that engages in satire, and has a disclaimer on its website that says, "Content of this website is a work of fiction. Readers are advised not to confuse the "news reports" of Faking News as being genuine and true."
The content of this website, therefore, cannot be taken as factual.
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The satire piece by Faking News article in May 2014 came a day after Abdullah objected to a comment by Jitendra Singh, the then Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office on the removal of Article 370. Abdullah had made some strong statements at that time in a series of tweets, stating comments like "Long after Modi Govt is a distant memory either J&K won't be part of India or Art 370 will still exist."
Speaking to
NDTV, Imran Dar, spokesperson of Abdullah's party National Conference also denied that Abdullah had made such a comment. "Every statement of Omar Abdullah is in the public domain and he has not made any such statement," Dar told NDTV.
Modi's misleading comment comes on the same day Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti got booked under the Public Safety Act on the last day of their detention.