A morphed graphic of News 18 India's show Aar Paar is viral on social media with false claims that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was instrumental in the death of Islamic State (IS) chief Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi.
Baghdadi, an Iraqi born leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL or ISIS) reportedly blew himself up after running into a tunnel during an US military operation in Northwest Syria earlier this week.
The viral debate promo includes an image of the show, Aar Paar's host Amish Devgan, along with cut-out images of Narendra Modi, US President Donald Trump and Baghdadi.
The title of the bulletin has been morphed and placed below the three images with the text that claims: "Trump eliminated Baghdadi after pressure from Modi." (Original text in Hindi: मोदी के दबाव के चलते ट्रंप ने किया बगदादी को ढेर )
A tagline below the title reads, "(the) country's biggest debate."
The graphic is viral on Facebook and Twitter.
Congress leader Sachin Chaudhary also tweeted the graphic and took a dig at Amish Devgan.
The now deleted tweet read, "I appeal to the Indian government to award Amish Devgan with a Bharat Ratna for his adulatory messages for the government. I swear, I haven't seen a more adulating journalist than him."
Devgan retweeted Chaudhary's tweet to call out on the fake image as well.
BOOM was able to ascertain that the tweet has been morphed and the font of the headline has been tampered with. After comparing multiple graphics from the show, we found that the font of the fake viral graphic did not match with the graphics uploaded on their news channel's official Twitter handle.
BOOM also found that the show was not aired between the weekend October 26 and 27. The show resumed on October 28 where Devgan debated about birth control and the take of Muslims on the same.
In fact, the news channel has not run an entire show on Baghdadi's death yet.
US President Trump announced about Baghdadi's death on October 27, via a series of tweets.
