Fact Check: Viral image of CMR Shopping Mall hoarding makes a false claim of its publicity place
An image showing a hoarding of CMR Shopping Mall with a man wearing sherwani and sporting a skull cap, and a woman draped in a saree is in circulation with the claim that it shows love jihad advertisement in Karnataka.
An image showing a hoarding of CMR Shopping Mall with a man wearing sherwani and sporting a skull cap, and a woman draped in a saree is in circulation with the claim that it shows love jihad advertisement in Karnataka.
The caption in Hindi below this image claims that ‘the hoarding invites Muslim men to bring along a Hindu girl and get discounts up to 50%. This hoarding can be seen in Karnataka where the Congress has formed the government recently. #Karnataka’
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Fact Check:
The claim is false. The hoarding is dated back to 2019 and is in Telugu language and was from Telangana state, not Karnataka.
When observed carefully, we can see that the hoarding is of CMR Shopping Mall which is offering discounts from 10-50% on the occasion of Ramzan. All the addresses seen on the hoarding belong to Telangana state, which include Secunderabad, Malkajgiri, Siddipet and Mahbubnagar.
When we performed Google reverse image search, we found that the image in the viral messages was posted by several users in 2019.
A Facebook user shared the same image with a caption “#जेहाद का एक ओर #नया उदहारण आ
But several users shared this image in June 2019, stating that BJP MLA Raja Singh had criticized CMR Mall for their controversial Ramzan banner, and questioned them why show a Hindu woman be made to stand with a Muslim man for the Ramzan banner.
The narrative shared goes as ‘RSS & BJP MLA Raja Singh Warned CMR Shopping Mall over their Ramzan advertisement. They were asked to immediately remove this banner from all over the city. The BJP leaders said, "Are You Trying To Encourage LoveJihad.? Why a Hindu Woman with a Muslim Guy? If You don't Remove this type of Banner we will Ban Your Mall".
On further research, we found that CMR Shopping Mall issued an apology note for the controversial hoarding. The apology note states “Apologies for the blunder from the entire CMR Telangana Group. We have no intention of hurting any religious sentiments or creating any differences between religious groups. We support all religions and respect every community without any bias. All the hoardings have been removed and we assure not to repeat anything of this sort in the future. CMR Shopping Mall Andhra Pradesh is in no way associated or related with this.”
CMR Shopping Mall Andhra Pradesh also issued a clarification that the advertisement does not belong to them.
Therefore, the photo of a hoarding showing a Muslim man with a Hindu woman is an advertisement put up by the CMR Shopping Mall in Telangana in 2019. The claim that it is seen in Karnataka and is recent is FALSE.