Fact Check: Newspaper clipping claiming Rahul was arrested for wrong reasons at Boston airport is digitally generated

A screenshot of the image of an old newspaper clipping dated back to September 30, 2001, with the headline “Indian Politician Arrested” is being widely shared by social media users claiming that the said politician is Rahul Gandhi. The article, published on Page 13 of the newspaper, states that an Indian politician was detained at Boston airport when the airport security found him in possession of banned drugs and unaccounted cash.

The caption of the image shared claims “When Rahul Gandhi was arrested back in Boston for drugs. He was released after intervention of PM Vajpeyee. Soniya begged and large hearted Vajpeyee spoke to US authorities. Now such shabby character wants to be PM. One can check the newspaper clipping from Boston(USA)”

Fact check:

The claim is False. It is a digitally altered image.

Firstly, we searched for all the newspapers in Boston city in 2001 and found various newspapers. The main newspapers are “The Boston Globe”, “Boston Post”, etc.

Since the masthead design resembles the design of “The Boston Globe”, we searched for page 13 of The Boston Globe, September 30, 2001. But there was no mention of any Indian politician being arrested.

The newspaper clip has been generated using Newspaper Clipping Generator Tool – fodey.com

Telugupost generated a similar image by using fodey.com. Here is the comparison of the viral image and the image generated by us.

According to The Hindu, Rahul Gandhi was detained for about an hour at the Boston airport on September 29, 2001. Though the reasons for the detention were unknown, he was released after an hour.

Hence, the viral image shared is not genuine and was created digitally. The claim is false.