Fact Check: Viral video of PM Modi watching Bageshwar Baba on TV is edited

Hyderabad: Several social media users have shared a video showing Prime Minister Narendra Modi watching Bageshwar Baba aka Dhirendra Krishna Shastri on TV.

The English translation of the caption in the viral video reads, “Prime Minister Modi ji’s video of Ram Katha with the parents of Peethadhishwar Dhirender Krishna Shastri of Bageshwar Dham.”

Bageshwar Baba was recently in the headlines for claiming that he had a hint of the Odisha train tragedy days before the incident.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found the claim to be false as the video was digitally edited. On performing a reverse image search, we found the original video of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the same room as seen in the viral video but watching a different video on the television screen. The video was posted on the official Twitter handle of ANI dated July 22, 2019.

In the original version of the video, we found that, unlike the viral edited video, PM Modi was watching the live telecast of the Chandrayaan 2 launch by ISRO.

We performed a keyword search and fetched credible media reports backing our investigation. We found a media report on ABP Live with the same video titled, “PM Modi watched the live telecast of Chandrayaan 2 launch.”

For stronger confirmation, we dug out videos from YouTube as well.

Lastly, taking to Twitter, PIB Fact Check also called out the morphed video.