Fact Check: Neeraj Chopra did not tweet about PM Modi, fake post went viral

Vishvas News (New Delhi): A fake tweet in the name of Neeraj Chopra, who won the gold medal for India in the Tokyo Olympics, is going viral on social media. Vishvas News investigated and found that the viral post to be fake. The account shown in the viral post isn’t of Neeraj Chopra. The original Twitter handle of Neeraj Chopra is verified.

Claim

Facebook user Umesh Singh shared a post on August 10 writing: “There is such a rush to get credit that the player has to do such tweet. Shameless power.”

The fake tweet also used Neeraj Chopra’s picture and wrote: “This gold medal is the result of years of hard work by me and my coach. Don’t try to give credit to Modi ji.”

The archived version of the Facebook post can be viewed here.

Investigation

Vishvas News started searching for the alleged Twitter handle @i_m_nirajchopra used in the viral tweet to investigate the post. We could not find any account with this name.

During our investigation, we came to know that the verified Twitter handle of Neeraj Chopra is @Neeraj_chopra1. This account was created in June 2017. In August, Neeraj made only one tweet from this account. It can be viewed here.

Vishvas News got in touch with Abhishek Tripathi, Sports Editor, Dainik Jagran. He told us that this is not the real account of Neeraj Chopra. This is fake.

We scanned the profile of the Facebook user Umesh Singh who shared the viral post. We found that the user is based out of Patna.