Fact Check: UP CM Yogi Adityanath did not advise Salman Khan to apologise to gangster Lawrence Bishnoi
Gangster Lawrence Bishnoi has been making headlines since he publicly threatened to kill Bollywood actor Salman Khan
Yogi Adityanath comments
Gangster Lawrence Bishnoi has been making headlines since he publicly threatened to kill Bollywood actor Salman Khan in 2018, after his alleged poaching of two blackbucks. Blackbuck is the revered animal for the Bishnoi community in Rajasthan. Lawrence is the alleged mastermind behind the killings of Maharashtra minister Baba Siddique and Punjabi singer–politician Sidhu Moosewala. Recently, Salman Khan received multiple death threats allegedly from the Bishnoi gang. With this, his security was upgraded to the Y-plus category after shots were fired outside his home in Mumbai in April 2024.
In this backdrop, a video clip showing Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is making rounds on social media platforms, especially YouTube, with the claim that he said if Salman Khan apologizes, Lawrence Bishnoi and the community will forgive him. The claim in Hindi goes “सलमान माफी मांग ले बात खत्म #
Fact Check:
The claim is False. The video has been altered to make false statement.
When we watched the video properly, we could hear Yogi saying “Who is not worried about Salman? He is getting a house. He is getting food. He is getting medical treatment, but he should also follow the law of India. The country will run according to the Constitution. Shariat can be our personal matter, but Shariat cannot be bigger than the Constitution. And he should follow this.”
We extracted the keyframes from the video and searched them using Google reverse image search. We found the longer video published by ABP News. The video was published on March 23, 2024 with the title “CM Yogi Exclusive: BJP ने यूपी में क्या-क्या किया
In the video, we can see Yogi Adityanath talking about Muslims. He can be heard talking about several topics including elections. The viral part can be seen after 38.5 minutes in the original video. In the video, we can hear the word Muslim, which has been replaced with the word Salman in the viral video.
Upon further research, a fact-checking organisation Vishwas News, contacted BJP’s social media team, which confirmed that the chief minister did not make any such statement. Therefore, the viral video is not recent, it is an old one edited to give a false narrative. The UP CM did not say that Salman Khan should apologize to Lawrence Bishnoi in the recent times. The claim is False.