Fact Check: This Is Not The Picture of Atal Tunnel Connecting Manali And Leh

New Delhi (Vishvas News). After Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Atal tunnel, a picture of a tunnel is viral on social media with claim that it is the image of the newly inaugurated tunnel.

Vishvas News investigation revealed the claim is misleading.

The picture is the viral post is not the Atal tunnel of India.

Claim

Twitter user ‘Sunil Bharti (west delhi president at MPS) shared the viral photo (archive link ), writing, “Congratulations to PM Shri Narendra Modi ji for ‘Atal Tunnel’, the longest highway tunnel in the world. This tunnel will play an important role in protecting the country’s borders. The distance between Manali and Leh will also be reduced by 4 to 5 hours, which will boost the economy and tourism sector. “

पीएम श्री Narendra Modi जी को दुनिया की सबसे लंबी राजमार्ग सुरंग 'अटल सुरंग' के लिए बधाई। यह सुरंग हमारे देश की सीमाओं की रक्षा करने में महत्वपूर्ण भूमिका निभाएगी। मनाली और लेह के बीच की दूरी भी 4 से 5 घंटे कम हो जाएगी जिससे अर्थव्यवस्था और पर्यटन क्षेत्र को बढ़ावा मिलेगा। pic.twitter.com/jbL2gbB8Hw

— Sunil Bharti ( General secretary Delhi In LJP R ) (@SunilLJP) October 4, 2020

Twitter user ‘Chhail Bihari’ has also shared the viral photo (archive link ), writing, “Congratulations to PM Shri @narendramodi ji for ‘Atal Tunnel’, the world’s longest highway tunnel… “

पीएम श्री @narendramodi जी को दुनिया की सबसे लंबी राजमार्ग सुरंग 'अटल सुरंग' के लिए बधाई।#AtalTunnel #AtalTunnelRohtang https://t.co/CVkDjeGsaK

— Chhail Bihari ( Modi Ka Parivar ) (@ChhailBihariBJP) October 3, 2020

Twitter user ‘Narendra Kumar Chawla’ also shared this photo (archive link ) with similar claims.

पीएम श्री @narendramodi जी को दुनिया की सबसे लंबी राजमार्ग सुरंग 'अटल सुरंग' के लिए बधाई। यह सुरंग देश की सीमाओं की रक्षा करने में महत्वपूर्ण भूमिका निभाएगी।मनाली व लेह के बीच की दूरी भी 4 से 5 घंटे कम हो जाएगी,अर्थव्यवस्था और पर्यटन क्षेत्र को बढ़ावा मिलेगा।#AtalTunnelRohtang pic.twitter.com/eBOzNGnlzY

— Narendra Kumar Chawla (@NarendraKChawla) October 3, 2020

Investigation

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Atal tunnel connecting Leh and Manali on October 3. The official Twitter handle of the Prime Minister’s Office posted a tweet about the inauguration.

The entrance to this tunnel can be seen in pictures tweeted on October 3 from the official Twitter handle ‘MyGov Himachal’. The pictures give us information about the tunnel. The distance between tourist city Manali to Leh has been reduced by 46 kilometers by this tunnel.

अटल टनल पर बर्फ और हिमस्खलन से कोई असर नहीं पड़ेगा।
यहां यातायात किसी भी मौसम में बाधित नहीं होगी।#AtalTunnel pic.twitter.com/C55oAKY8cs

— MyGov Himachal (@mygovhimachal) October 3, 2020

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has shared other pictures including the entrance of the tunnel from his official Twitter profile, which does not match the viral picture shared by several social media users.

The #AtalTunnel is a game changing infrastructure project that will help several citizens. With this project comes several economic benefits, particularly for agriculture and tourism. pic.twitter.com/6gAwK5QR4Y

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) October 3, 2020

Hansraj Saini, the deputy chief correspondent of Dainik Jagran who covered the inauguration ceremony of Atal Tunnel clarified to us that the tunnel in the viral picture is not of the newly inaugurated Atal tunnel. He also sent us several pictures of the Atal tunnel captured from the inauguration spot.

We found that none of the viral images matched with the real pictures.

We used Google reverse image search tool to find the original source of the viral picture. We found it on inspectionservices.net .

According to the website, the viral image is of a 4200 feet long tunnel from the bottom of Mount San Pedro, California, which is built with New Austrian Tunnel Method. The California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) is building the tunnel at a cost of about $ 343 million. Now this tunnel has been opened for common people. We accessed a video confirming transport through the tunnel.

https://youtu.be/6YSy40BSwsU

Social scanning of the user who shared the viral picture revealed that he is the President of Maharana Pratap Sena (West Delhi).

Conclusion: The viral post is fake. The picture shared in the post is not of the newly inaugurated Atal tunnel connecting Manali and Leh.