Journalist-turned-film director, Avinash Das tweeted a screenshot of a newspaper clipping where Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath is quoted as saying, “हमारा काम गाय बचाना है, लड़की नहीं (Our job is to save the cow and not a girl -translated)”. Along with the clipping, Das posted a message saying, “बोलो, इस आदमी को जूते पड़ने चाहिए या नहीं? (tell me, should this man be slapped with shoes or not? -translated)”. So far, it has received close to 1400 retweets and 3,900 likes.
बोलो, इस आदमी को जूते पड़ने चाहिए या नहीं? pic.twitter.com/hFDTL8xgEE
— Avinash Das (@avinashonly) December 24, 2018
@SirRavishlive, a parody Twitter handle of journalist Ravish Kumar had also ascribed the same statement to Adityanath.
हमारा काम गाय बचाना है, लड़की नहीं : योगी आदित्यनाथ
इससे बेशर्म बयान और क्या हो सकता है!
— Sir Ravish Kumar (@SirRavishlive) April 17, 2018
The statement attributed to Adityanath is viral on Facebook and Twitter at least since April this year.
It is unlikely that such a statement made by a Chief Minister would go unreported in the mainstream media. We couldn’t find any credible news report ascribing such a statement to Adityanath.
Originated from a satirical website
Alt News found that the claim originated from a now-deleted website, Rhumor Times. The statement attributed to Yogi Adityanath first appeared in an article published by the website on April 10, 2018. The archived version of this article can be accessed here.
The ‘About Us’ section of the website explicitly mentions,, “rhumor times is a satire and humor website. the website publishes rumor with humor.” This claim was also fact-checked by The Lallantop in April this year.
Social media users should be circumspect while circulating statements attributed to politicians or celebrities without verifying the credibility of the source. In the past as well, a fake newspaper clip was circulated on social media ascribing a quote to Amit Shah calling the Baniya community ‘thieves’ and ‘cheaters’.
This article was first published at Alt News.