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| - Fact Check: Netizens fall prey to British PM Boris Johnson's imposter account offering apology for colonial rule in India
The viral tweet by a fake account of Boris Johnson says, "I am sorry for what Britain did to India 74 years ago, so I want to apologize to Indians. Happy Independence Day to Incredible India."
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India Today Fact Check
The account from which the apology message was posted is an imposter account and not that of UK PM Boris Johnson.
Has UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson apologised to Indians for Britain's colonial rule in India? This is what several netizens are believing. A tweet dated August 15 purportedly posted by the British PM has gone viral on social media. It says, "I am sorry for what Britain did to India 74 years ago, so I want to apologize to Indians. Happy Independence Day to Incredible India."
The archived version of this tweet can be seen here.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the claim to be false. The Twitter account from which the tweet has been posted doesn't belong to UK PM Boris Johnson and is, instead, an imposter account.
Till the time of filing this story, the post had been retweeted by around 6,700 people.
A Twitter user retweeted it with the caption, "Indian's have always been very much kind with forgiving the one who did give them their worst of all times."
Another said, "Thank you Mr. PM. Finally, the PM acknowledges the mistreatment of Indians. Hope the Queen too issues her statement of apology."
The viral tweet was shared on Facebook as well. Some of such posts can be seen here, here and here.
AFWA probe
In a bid to find out whether the account was genuine or not, we noticed that the tweet has been posted from an unverified Twitter handle @BorisUKJohnson. The Twitter account's bio reads - 'Prime Minister Of UK | Unofficial | FC |' in its bio. Also, this account was created quite recently in July 2020.
The official Twitter handle of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the other hand, is @BorisJohnson. The account which was created in April 2015, is a verified account, and has 2.9 million followers. The imposter account, on the other hand, has little over 5,300 followers.
The account from which the viral tweet was posted uses the same display picture as that of the original Twitter account of British PM Johnson, which makes it even more believable.
Had British PM Boris posted such a message on Twitter, it would have definitely been covered by several media organisations. However, we did not find any media report related to this tweet.
On August 15, 2020, PM Boris Johnson had not tweeted anything related to India's Independence Day, though he did tweet about the second world war.
However, it is noteworthy that former British Prime Minister Theresa May did express her deep regret for the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, carried out by British colonial troops in India, that took place in 1919. She had called the tragedy a "shameful scar" on British Indian history.
Her statement had come just before the 100th anniversary of the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre and was widely covered by the Indian media. We found a video related to this on the youtube channel of Hindustan Times.
Thus, it is clear that UK PM Boris Johnson has not apologised to the Indians for colonising India. The viral tweet was posted from an imposter account.
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