A screenshot of a tweet purportedly published the Press Trust of India (PTI) is being shared on social media claiming that Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis’s wife Amruta Fadnavis has extended her support to the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) President and BJP leader Brij Bhushan Singh, who has been accused of sexual harassment by the wrestlers. The purported tweet of PTI states, “Amruta Fadnavis comes out in support of Brijbhushan and said she will retire from singing if anything happens to Brijbhushan.” Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Screenshot of PTI’s tweet reporting Amruta Fadnavis extending support to Brij Bhushan Singh.
Fact: The purported tweet shown in the photo was tweeted by a parody account of the Press Trust of India. Lately, Amruta Fadnavis did not make any such statement extending her support to Brij Bhushan Singh, and PTI also did not make any such tweet reporting Amruta Fadnavis’s statement about Brij Bhushan Singh. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
When searched to check whether the Press Trust of India (PTI) made any such tweet reporting Amruta Fadnavis extending support to the WFI President Brij Bhushan Singh, we could not find any such tweet on the official Twitter handle of the PTI. Also, we could not find any news report confirming the news of Amruta Fadnavis coming out in support of Brij Bhushan Singh.
On observing the photo shared in the post carefully, one could see the Twitter profile name as ‘Press Thrust of India’, instead of the ‘Press Trust of India’. The username of the official Twitter handle of PTI is ‘@PTI_News’, whereas the username on the fake tweet shown in the post was “@ZackRhea”. Also, there is no blue verified tick mark on the purported PTI tweet shared in the post. The fake tweet shared in the post mentioned WFI President’s name as Brijbhushan Singh, but the original Twitter handle of PTI always mentioned WFI President’s name as Brij Bhushan Singh or Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh.
The Twitter account with the username “@ZackRhea” can be seen here. In the bio-section of the Twitter handle, it is clearly stated as a parody account of the Press Trust of India. Many users quoted this fake tweet published by the parody account of PTI. A few of those tweets can be seen here and here. The said tweet is now deleted from the parody account.
To sum it up, this purported tweet of PTI reporting Amruta Fadnavis extending support to Brij Bhushan Singh is fake.
