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| - Fact Check: This letter from Doval praising Uttarakhand govt for Kumbh arrangements is fake
A false rumour has been doing the rounds on social media about National Security Advisor Ajit Doval writing to Uttarakhand chief secretary praising the government's efforts towards organising the Kumbh Mela.
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India Today Fact Check
The NSA has not written any such letter to Om Prakash. The government has called it “fake”. The Uttarakhand CS has also confirmed that he has not received any such letter from Doval on Kumbh Mela.
Did National Security Advisor Ajit Doval write to Uttarakhand chief secretary appreciating the government’s efforts in organising the Kumbh Mela at Haridwar?
The government has already received flak for allowing the Kumbh Mela during the pandemic. Huge crowds were witnessed at the event and many attendees tested positive for coronavirus.
Amid this, an image of a letter apparently signed by Doval has gone viral. In the letter addressed to Uttarakhand chief secretary Om Prakash, the NSA reportedly lauded government officials for successfully organising the Kumbh Mela this year.
Several social media users, i
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that the NSA has not written any such letter to Om Prakash. The government has called it “fake”. The Uttarakhand CS also confirmed that he has not received any such letter from Doval on Kumbh Mela.
The archived versions of the posts are saved here and here.
Truth behind the viral letter
Several grammatical errors in the viral letter made us suspicious about its authenticity. For example, one of the sentences reads, “I also appreciating that you use your past experience of Kumbh Mela officer”, which is wrong grammatically and syntactically.
Soon after the letter went viral, the government called it fake, according to news agency ANI.
India Today reached out to Om Prakash to whom the viral letter is addressed. The senior IAS officer said, “I have not received any such letter from the NSA regarding Kumbh Mela recently.”
We found that the language and a few sentences in the viral letter are similar to another letter that some news outlets claimed were written by Doval to Uttar Pradesh chief secretary Rajender Kumar Tiwari in 2019. India Today cannot independently verify the authenticity of that letter.
Viral letter of 2021
Viral letter of 2019
Earlier, PIB had debunked another fake letter that went viral in Doval’s name in which he purportedly congratulated the Commissioner Secretary, Ladakh, for his role in handling the border situation.
Hence, it is clear that the viral image of a letter allegedly written by Doval to the Uttarakhand chief secretary for a ‘successful’ Kumbh Mela is fake.
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