By Srijit Das
A morphed newspaper clipping of Hindi daily Dainik Jagran is circulating on social media platforms with claims that the newspaper has started a campaign titled 'One Neighborhood, One Goat' ahead of the Eid-al-Fitr celebrations to limit the sacrifice of goats during the festivities.
BOOM found that the original picture shows a Dainik Jagran-initiative titled 'One neighborhood, One bonfire' to promote eco-friendly Holika Dahan celebrations.
Holika Dahan is celebrated a day before Holi where bonfires are lit.
The Hindi text in the viral photo translates to, "This time on Bakri Eid, if possible, sacrifice only one goat in the entire locality. It will increase affinity, blood mule will be less, less water wastage, dirt will spread less".
(Original Text in Hindi: इस बार बकरीद पर हो सके तो पुरे मोहल्ले मे एक ही बकरे की कुर्बानी दे इससे अपनापन बढेगा खून खच्चर कम होगा पानी की बर्बादी कम होगी गन्दगी कम फैलेगी)
The photo is being shared with a caption, "Full support Dainik Jagran".
Click here to view the tweet.
Click here to view the tweet.
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Fact Check
We searched with the Hindi keywords 'Ek Mohalla, Ek Bakra', (One Neighborhood, One Goat) from the viral picture and came across tweets from March 05, 2023, where right wing users trolled the news outlet and sarcastically commented that Jagran should come out with an ad saying 'one neighbourhood, one goat' for Bakri Eid. The tweets also took a jibe at Dainik Jagran for their original Holi ad campaign that called for limited bonfire celebrations.
View such tweets here, here, here and here.
Taking this as a cue, we were able to find the original Holi campaign which appealed to light one bonfire per locality to reduce pollution and promote an environment friendly Holika Dahan celebration.
Sudarshan TV journalist Jitendra Pratap Singh tweeted the original news clipping calling for a boycott of Dainik Jagran. Right leaning outlet OpIndia published an opinion piece claiming that the advertisement is part of a media-run propaganda against the Hindus.
When compared, we noticed several similarities between the morphed image and the Dainik Jagran advertisement tweeted by a user. Below is a comparison of the same.
We found that the advertisement was published on March 4, 2023, on Dainik Jagran's Moradabad edition. The picture of the newspaper clipping can be seen below. The Dainik Jagran advertisement titled as 'One neighborhood, one bonfire' reads, "This time on Holi, try that instead of lighting different Holika at a short distance, as much as possible. Burn only one Holika (bonfire) in a locality. This will reduce pollution, will increase affinity. Do not block the traffic, it will cause trouble to us and you only. Save high tension and other wires. Use cow dung instead of wood, so that our trees can be saved. Don't burn any stuff that pollutes the environment."
Apart from this, we found a Dainik Jagran news report and a tweet from its correspondent Vaibhav Tiwari's related to the campaign.
Uttar Pradesh's Hardoi Police took to Twitter and praised the campaign by Dainik Jagran on March 7, 2023.
Click here to view the tweet.
BOOM also reached out to Dainik Jagran's Uttar Pradesh editor Ashutosh Shukla regarding the viral picture. Shukla confirmed that the Jagran did not have any campaign with the words 'Ek Mohalla, Ek Bakra' as claimed.
Shukla told BOOM, "Dainik Jagran's campaign is 'Ek Mohalla, Ek Holika', which is a campaign for the conservation of the environment. Advertisements of our campaign have been published many times before."
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