A photograph(here and here) allegedly showing an individual making a disrespectful hand gesture towards the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is doing its rounds on social media platforms. The picture depicts PM Narendra Modi waving his hand from a car while a person in the crowd seemingly makes an offensive gesture. We fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: A photo shows a person making a disrespectful gesture towards PM Modi.
Fact: The viral photo is a digitally edited version of the original image dating back to at least 2019, in which the offensive hand gesture is not there. Hence, the claim made in the viral post is False.
To learn more about the viral photo, we conducted a reverse image search. This led us to several old news reports (here, here and here) containing the same image, suggesting that the photograph is not recent.
A clear difference between the viral image and the ones found on news outlets like Hindustan Times is the absence of the offensive hand gesture in the latter.
This analysis confirms that the viral photo has been digitally altered to create a false impression of a disrespectful gesture being made towards PM Modi from among a crowd.
To sum up, the viral photo of a disrespectful gesture made towards PM Narendra Modi is a digitally edited version of an older image.
