A screenshot of a purported tweet made by the ‘News 24’ channel is being shared on social media claiming that the ‘News 24’ channel had issued a public apology to Akhilesh Yadav for projecting a link between the tax evasion accused Piyush Jain and the Samajwadi Party. This tweet shared a news bulletin admitting Piyush Jain as a member of BJP, not from the Samajwadi Party. On 22 December 2021, the ‘Directorate General of GST Intelligence’ (DGGI) officials raided the premises of Kanpur Industrialist Piyush Jain and seized 177 crore rupees unaccounted cash. The DGGI officials arrested Piyush Jain over the charges of tax evasion. On 29 December 2021, while addressing a public meeting, Yogi Adityanath alleged Piyush Jain is a member of the Samajwadi Party. Several news channels reported Yogi Adityanath’s statement claiming the arrested Piyush Jain as a member of the Samajwadi Party. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: ‘News 24’ channel apologised to Akhilesh Yadav for reporting Piyush Jain as a member of the Samajwadi Party.
Fact: The tweet shared in the post is a morphed one. ‘News 24’ channel through a tweet clarified that this viral tweet circulating on social media is a fake one. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When we searched for this tweet on ‘News 24’ channel’s official Twitter handle, we could not find any such tweet on the ‘News 24’ Twitter handle. ‘News 24’ channel videos and tweets related to the Piyush Jain’s arrest can be seen here, here, and here. On observing carefully, we could see the font difference in the text written in the actual tweet & the tweet viral on social media. The ‘News 24’ text font in the tweet differs from the font of other words in the tweet. Also, the colour and graphics scheme of a normal ‘News 24’ breaking news template differs from the one shared in the post.
‘News 24’ news channel had issued a clarification regarding this viral image circulating on social media. The channel clarified that the viral tweet circulating on social media is a fake one.
Ever since the raid on Kanpur Industrialist Piyush Jain, the BJP and Samajwadi Party leaders have been accusing each other of having links with the accused businessman Piyush Jain, a popular perfume businessman from Kanpur. ‘Amar Ujala’ reported launched Samajwadi perfume in the presence of Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow a month ago. Following Piyush Jain’s arrest, Narendra Modi and Yogi Adityanath have alleged links between Piyush Jain and the Samajwadi Party. However, Akhilesh Yadav responded to BJP allegations and said, “It was our MLC Pushpraj Jain who made the perfume for us. They [BJP] advertised through media that the person raided belongs to SP. By afternoon, journalists understood the person raided had nothing to do with the SP. Then they changed their statements. The raid was done at the wrong place. Against its [BJP’s] own businessman. You should get out Piyush Jain’s call details and you will find BJP people’s names. They wanted to raid Pushpraj Jain, but by mistake raided Piyush Jain. It seems like a mistake of Digital India”.
ANI reported in November 2021 that SP MLC Pushpraj Jain spoke at the launch of ‘Samajwadi Attar’.
To sum it up, a morphed tweet is shared as ‘News 24’ channel’s apology to Akhilesh Yadav for projecting Piyush Jain as a member of the Samajwadi party.
