A collage of a couple of images is being widely shared through a post claiming that PM Modi visited Pope Francis, travelling in a taxi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Rome for the G20 summit, on the sidelines he met Pope Francis on 30 October 2021 in the Vatican. Let us fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Images showing PM Modi’s visit to Pope Francis in a taxi.
Fact: The images were morphed to make them look like PM Modi visited Pope Francis in a Taxi. In the first image, the taxi nameplate on the first image can be clearly seen superimposed on the original image. In the second image, below the number plate of the car, a fake taxi plate was embedded. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Rome for the G20 summit, on the sidelines, he met Pope Francis on 30 October 2021 in the Vatican. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When reverse image search is done on the images, similar images tweeted (here and here) by ANI were found. The tweets confirm that the images were clicked as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with Pope Francis. However, the images are not the same as in the tweets. There is also a video uploaded by ANI on their YouTube channel, where the images in the post are different from the frames in the video.
Upon closer observation, the taxi nameplate on the first image can be clearly seen superimposed on the original image by ANI. When compared with the rest of the image, the ‘Taxi’ plate on top of the car is brighter in contrast.
In the second image, below the number plate of the car, a fake taxi plate was embedded. When compared with the original image, it can be seen that the image had been edited.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Rome for the G20 summit, on the sidelines, he met Pope Francis on 30 October 2021 in the Vatican. Modi had invited Pope Francis to visit India.
To sum it up, these images showing PM Modi visiting Pope Francis in a Taxi are edited.
