The woman whom Priyanka Gandhi Vadra hugged in the photo is the mother of Hathras rape victim - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
October 15, 2020
A collage with the photos of Priyanka Gandhi hugging a woman and the photo highlighting a congress spokesperson is being shared on social media claiming that Priyanka Gandhi consoling the Hathras rape victim fake mother. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Priyanka Gandhi hugged Hathras rape victim’s fake mother who is a Congress party worker
Fact: Photo shared in the post shows Priyanka Gandhi Vadra hugging Hathras rape victim’s mother. The other woman in the post is Goa Pradesh Congress Committee member and she has nothing to do with Hathras incident. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On searching for the photos of Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra consoling the Hathras rape victim’s family, the same photo was found in an article published by ‘The Economic Times’ on  ‘04 October 2020’. In the article, it is mentioned as the photo shot while Priyanka Gandhi was consoling the 19-year-old dead rape victim’s family in Bulgadi village of Hathras. Photo in this article is credited to PTI. ‘ANI’ news channel in a tweet published the video of Priyanka Gandhi consoling the mother of the rape victim. Journalist Barkha Dutt shared the photo of Hathras rape victim’s mother on twitter. Though we couldn’t see the woman’s face in the photo, we could see that the woman in the photo is wearing the same saree as shown in the post.
‘India Today’ and ‘Times Now’ news channels shared the videos of their interaction with the Hathras Rape victim’s mother on twitter. They can be watched here and here. In these videos also, Hathras rape victim’s mother is seen in the same saree as shared in the post.
On reverse image search of the photo highlighting another woman in the social media post, the same image was found on the cover picture of a Facebook account named Pratibha Borkar. Pratibha Borkar is the member of Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC). The visuals of this specific photo were found in the press meet video posted by the official Facebook page of Indian National Congress Goa. Her photo is being used to post such content on social media. It is being claimed that she acted as the Hathras rape victim’s mother.
To sum it up, the woman whom Priyanka Gandhi Vadra hugged in the photo is the mother of Hathras rape victim and not a Congress party worker.