Did Kevin Pietersen upload his image with tilak and write Jay Shree Ram? Know the truth.

Currently, former England cricketer Kevin Pietersen’s image with tilak on his forehead is going viral on social media. Along with this an Instagram post saying “Jay Shree Ram” is also there. Social media users are claiming that recently Kevin Pietersen uploaded the image and wrote Jay Shree Ram on his Instagram account. 

However, Fact Crescendo found the claim to be false. This is an altered image and the Instagram account does not belong to Kevin Pietersen. 

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Sportskeeda website also published an article saying many sports persons like David Warner, Anil Kumble, Mithali Raj, Kevin Pietersen etc gave their reaction on the Pran Pratishtha of Ayodhya Ram Temple. It also mentioned, “Pietersen captained his post with ‘Jai Shree Ram’ in Hindi followed by an applauding emoji.”

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Fact Check- 

First, we search for Kevin Pietersen’s Instagram account. We found that his official Instagram account is different from the one that is going viral. His name in the account has all small cases alphabets whereas in the viral image it is different. 

We did not see any post on his Instagram account where he wrote Jay Shree Ram or uploaded his image wearing tilak on his forehead. 

But we found his Twitter account with username @KP24 which is similar to the screenshot of the post in the viral image. Upon searching tweets made by him, we did not find any which were similar to the viral image. 

A Google Reverse Image Search led us to Kevin Pietersen’s same image uploaded on a website in 2020. The headline reads, “Former cricketer Kevin Pietersen bats for Rhino conservation” Similar image was published on another website saying, “Cricketer Kevin Pietersen grooves to AR Rahman’s Otakadha Kattiko in this fun video”

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We found many similarities between the viral image and the image we found from the above websites. We found that in both the images Kevin Pietersen is wearing the same dress, a chain on his neck, same facial expressions and hairstyle. Below you can see the comparison. 

Conclusion: 

FAct Crescendo found the claim to be false. Kevin Pietersen’s old image from 2020 was altered to show he is wearing tilak on his forehead and wrote Jay Shree Ram on the occasion of Pran Pratishtha of Ayodhya Ram Mandir.