Fact Check: This viral post about lockdown announcement in Assam is misleading

Guwahati (Vishvas News). A recent photo has become widely viral on social media and WhatsApp, which states that the Assam government has announced a lockdown from April 30, 2021 to June this year. Using the Logo of English weekly newspaper GPlus, it has been claimed that the Assam government has made the announcement for Covid-19.

We found in our investigation that the claims made with this viral post are completely misleading. Vishvas News contacted Barsha Das, Senior Journalist with weekly newspaper GPlus. She clarified that the “viral post is completely fake and we have already clarified. The new post has been created by distorting a screen shot of news published on March 23, 2020.”

What is this viral post?

A news story that there will be a shutdown again across the state has become widely viral on Whatsapp. Post suggests that the Assam government has again declared a lock-down in Assam from April 30 to June 2021.

Investigation

The first lockdown was announced in Assam on March 23, 2020. With the use of Google reverse image search, we found a post in GPlus’s Facebook Page which was published on March 23, 2020. The graphic was very similar to the viral post, except for the dates. You can view this post by clicking here.

When we compared this March 23, 2020 post clip with the viral post, it became clear that this is an edited version of the same. The similarities between the two can be seen below.

To further investigate, we checked the verified social media handles of govt departments, but nowhere did we find any post asserting the viral claim.

We also contacted State Health, Finance, Transformation & Development, Health & Family Welfare, PWD, Education (Higher, Secondary & Elementary) Minister Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma. He confirmed to us “No more Lock-Down in the State as of now.”

Vishvas News contacted Barsha Das, Senior Journalist with weekly newspaper GPlus. She clarified that the “viral post is completely fake and we have already clarified. The new post has been created by distorting a screen shot of news published on March 23, 2020.” You can see this clarifying in the link here.