Many false and misleading news regarding the lockdown have been going viral on social media platforms. Fact Crescendo has previously debunked many such viral claims on lockdown violence, lockdown rules and regulations and lockdown duration and effectiveness before. Recently we came across an image of an online newspaper, which claimed that Uttarakhand is preparing for a full lockdown two days a week. A screenshot of the newspaper with the headline “Uttarakhand: Preparing for complete lockdown two days a week” and an image can be seen in the post.
The caption of the post mentions, “Looking at the growing case of COVID-19, the country is again moving towards lockdown”
Fact Check-
We started the investigation by running a keyword search on Google, the results led us to some news articles confirming that the lockdown will be fully implemented in Uttarakhand two days a week. But these news articles were published on 18th July this year.
One India Hindi | Archive Link
Upon further investigation, we found a Facebook post (E-Uttarakhand), which mentioned that the viral post is false. According to the post the viral image is not a recent image,an old image is going viral with misleading claims. The title of that post reads, “Two days a week preparations for complete lockdown in the state. The old cutting of a newspaper is being broadcasted on social media, which is completely untrue and misleading. No such decision has been taken. Please ignore such rumors and beware of such misleading news. Strict legal action will be taken against those who promote / propagate such misleading and untrue news on social media.”
After this, we found a Facebook post published by Uttarakhand Police, which mentioned, “Uttarakhand is not preparing for a full lockdown two days a week, the claims are completely untrue and misleading. Uttarakhand government has taken no such decision. Please ignore such rumors and beware of such misleading news. Strict legal action will be taken against those who promote / propagate such misleading and untrue news on social media.”
Uttarakhand Police has also tweeted in this viral hoax on their official Twitter account.
When we contacted DG Crime and Law Ashok Kumar of Uttarakhand to confirm the above Facebook post, they called the viral news false and misleading, saying, “No decision of any kind of lockdown in Uttarakhand has happened. The news getting viral is completely false and misleading. In Uttarakhand, shops and markets have weekly holidays and we are empowering them. Apart from this, there is not going to be any kind of lockdown here. “
Conclusion: Fact Crescendo has found the above claim to be False. There is currently no lockdown of any kind in Uttarakhand.
Title:Is Uttarakhand preparing for a full lockdown of two days a week? Know the truth…
Fact Check By: Aavya RayResult: False
