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| - Fact Check: Old pic of KCR's Ramadan gift for Muslims goes viral with misleading claim
Is the Telangana government distributing Ramadan gifts to Muslims in the middle of the coronavirus crisis? This is what is being claimed with a picture of a pink bag that has "Eid Mubarak, RAMZAN GIFT, Government of Telangana" written on it.
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India Today Fact Check
The viral picture is five years old. To prevent crowds during the Covid-19 crisis, the KCR government is not distributing Ramadan gifts to Muslims this time.
Is the Telangana government distributing Ramadan gifts to Muslims in the middle of the coronavirus crisis? This is what is being claimed with a picture of a pink bag that has “Eid Mubarak, RAMZAN GIFT, Government of Telangana” written on it.
On May 11, Suresh Chavhanke, editor-in-chief of “Sudarshan News” channel, tweeted the photo with a caption in Hindi that translates to, “The Telangana government is giving special kits to Muslims on Ramzan for free. On Hindu festivals of Ram Navami, Hanuman Jayanti and Ugadi, it is not even allowed to step out of your homes.”
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that the claim along with the photo is misleading. The viral picture is at least five years old. Though the K Chandrashekar Rao government in Telangana has been distributing Ramadan gifts to Muslims for years, it has been shelved this time due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
Chavhanke’s tweet has been liked by more than 23,000 users and retweeted over 9,700 times till the filing of this story. The archived version of the tweet can be seen here. The post is getting viral on Facebook (https://bit.ly/3dysyuw) as well.
AFWA probe
With the help of reverse image search, we found that the viral picture was used in July 2015 in an article by iChowk.in. As per the article, this gift pack was given by the Telangana government to Muslims on the occasion of Ramadan.
The viral picture was also used in an article by Sakshi Post in 2018. This article too is related to the KCR government’s Ramadan gifts to Muslims. This proves that the picture has been used multiple times over the years.
Addressing the media on May 5, KCR had even clarified that the state government will not distribute Ramadan gifts this year in a bid to prevent crowding in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. This can be heard at 1:39:40 (1 hour-39 minutes-40 seconds) in the below video, wherein KCR is seen addressing a press conference in Telugu.
The video can be seen here.
An official of Telangana’s minority welfare department also confirmed to AFWA that the state government is not distributing Ramadan gifts this year due to the coronavirus outbreak. Religious gatherings are already prohibited due to the crisis.
We also found some news reports which suggest that the Telangana government distributes gifts on other festivities too, such as Bathukamma, a folk festival of the state, and during Christmas.
According to the Union ministry of health and family welfare, Telangana reported 1,275 cases of coronavirus and 30 deaths till May 12 evening. The state government has prohibited all gatherings due to the crisis and also cancelled events for distributing Ramadan gifts to Muslims. The viral image being circulated on social media is old.
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