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| - Fact Check: Netizens fall for fake Twitter account impersonating Shatrughan Sinha's son
Actor-politician Luv Sinha, son of Shatrughan Sinha, has tweeted that Muslims should raise their voice for IPS Sanjiv Bhatt. However, the tweet was made from an imposter account and Luv hasn't said any such thing.
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India Today Fact Check
The tweet was made from an imposter account. Luv hasn’t said any such thing.
Former actor and Union minister Shatrughan Sinha’s son, Luv, has been pitted against three-time BJP MLA Nitin Navin from Bankipore assembly seat in the upcoming Bihar elections. Luv is contesting the elections on a Congress ticket.
Social media too is witnessing hectic political activity. Amid this, a Twitter account, @Luv_Sinha143, purportedly belonging to actor-politician Luv, has been continuously putting up controversial posts. Thousands of people are sharing its tweets, believing the account to be of Luv’s.
The archived version of this Twitter account can be seen here.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that the Twitter handle @Luv_Sinha143 does not belong to Luv. Upon analysing the account with the help of various digital forensic tools, we found several evidences which point towards the account being fake. Let us look into these points one by one.
1) Number of followers
In the bio section of his verified Facebook account, Luv has mentioned that his Twitter handle is @LuvSinha. This account was created in December 2009 and has around 35,000 followers.
On the other hand, the Twitter handle @Luv_Sinha143 was created in February 2019 and has around 3,700 followers.
2) Even ‘papa’ doesn’t follow
With the help of TweetBeaver tool, we found that the person with the Twitter handle @Luv_Sinha143 doesn’t follow Shatrughan Sinha. Neither does ‘Shotgun’ follow the account.
On the other hand, Shatrughan, whose verified Twitter handle is @ShatruganSinha, follows the Twitter handle @LuvSinha, which is the original Twitter handle of his son Luv. “My only official Twitter account is @LuvSinha,” Luv said when AFWA contacted him.
3) Account inactive for almost two years
The Twitter handle @Luv_Sinha143 showed activity for the first time on September 23, 2020, around 19 months after it was created. This is not impossible, but quite unlikely. On September 23, no original tweet was made, but rather, some posts by other accounts were retweeted.
4) Calls himself a Muslim
The pinned tweet of @Luv_Sinha143 in Hindi translates to, “Some 70 per cent of the people who raised their voice for Kafeel Khan were Hindus. So shouldn’t we Muslims raise our voices for IPS Sanjiv Bhatt now?”
If this was Luv’s original Twitter account, it’s unlikely he would use “Hum Musalmaan” (We Muslims).
5) Shaheen Bagh crusader
As per Twitonomy, the “Hashtags most used” by @Luv_Sinha143 prominently features “Shaheen Bagh”.
6) Retweets parody accounts
This Twitter handle quite often retweets posts by parody accounts. Very frequently, tweets by parody accounts of actors Swara Bhaskar and Rhea Chakraborty, journali
All these clues point to the fact that the account @Luv_Sinha143, in all likelihood, is an imposter account and not the original handle of Shatrughan Sinha’s son Luv.
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