BBC tweet about Brahmastra cast donating money to flood-hit Pakistan is fake

Hyderabad: A screengrab of a tweet by BBC News Hindi is circulating on social media. According to the tweet, Bollywood film Brahmastra's producer Karan Johar donated Rs. 5 crores while the film's actors Alia Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoor donated Rs. 1 crore each to help the flood-hit Pakistan. It further claims that if their film is a hit, they have promised to donate another Rs. 51 crores.

The claim comes as Pakistan has been devasted by the worst flood of the century. According to news reports, one-third of the country is inundated with water following an intense heat wave and long monsoon with record-breaking rainfall.

The post is doing the rounds of Facebook and Twitter. (See the archived post here and here.)

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the viral tweet misidentifies the lead actor of the movie Brahmastra Ranbir Kapoor as Ranveer Kapoor. We also noticed discrepancies in the template of the tweet.

On comparing the template of the viral tweet with the template of Android, iOS, Twitter web and TweetDeck, we found inconsistencies in the date and time format. The viral tweet mentions the date as "1 Sep 22" which does not match the format of the original templates. The dots separating the time, date, and device are missing, and the Google translation option is also missing in the viral tweet.

Further, we found that BBC has clarified that the tweet doing the rounds on social media in the name of BBC Hindi is fake. The tweet when translated reads, "A fake tweet about Pakistan's floods and Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt starring Brahmastra is circulating on social media in the name of BBC Hindi. This tweet is fake, and no such tweet or such news was published by BBC Hindi."

It is evident from this that the viral tweet is fake.