Fact Check: Viral image of ABN Andhrajyothi claiming Nara Lokesh’s arrest in USA is FAKE
Nara Lokesh, the scion of the Telugu Desam party and son of party chief N Chandrababu Naidu, has been active in Andhra Pradesh politics since long. He led the Yuva Galam padayatra on behalf of the TDP.
Claim :
ABN Andhrajyothi TV channel’s Twitter account shared breaking news that Nara Lokesh was arrested by American police in the USAFact :
The image is a morphed one, it does not show a screenshot of ABN Andhrajyothi’s breaking news. TDP shared a tweet that the news of Nara Lokesh's arrest is Fake news.
Nara Lokesh, the scion of the Telugu Desam party and son of party chief N Chandrababu Naidu, has been active in Andhra Pradesh politics for a long. He led the Yuva Galam padayatra on behalf of the TDP.
A screenshot of ABN Andhrajyothi showing Breaking News that Chandrababu’s call: Telugu Diaspora urged to pause support for Biden amidst Nara Lokesh’s arrest, is viral on social media.
The messages claiming that Nara Lokesh has been arrested by the American police are also shared virally on all social media platforms. The claim goes on to say that he was arrested by the American police in a money laundering case.
“అమెరికా పోలీసుల అదుపులో నారా లోకేష్___అమెరికాలో మనీ లాండరింగ్ కేసులో ఇరుక్కున్న నారా లోకేష్___ప్రస్తుతం అమెరికాలో పోలీసుల ఆధీనంలో ఉన్న నారా లోకేష్____NaraLokesh _YuvaGalam _ChadraBabu _AndhraPradesh _Politics _LooterLokesh”
' BIG BREAKING ' Nara Lokesh Arrested in the USA @naralokesh
Fact Check:
The claim is False. The screenshot of ABN is a hoax. The TV channel did not publish any such news.
When observed, we found that the X (Twitter) account of ABN Telugu (@ABNNewsLive) is not the social media account of ABN Andhrajyothi TV channel. It was started in November 2022 and has only 380 followers and has posted only 484 tweets. It is an imposter account. The imposter account added parody to their bio after the tweet went viral.
The Twitter account of ABN Andhrajyothi is @abntelugutv with 223.4k followers and it was on Twitter since April 2011.
The Facebook page of ABN Andhrajyothi shared an alert that dismissed the break as fake news.
When searched for the news about the arrest of Nara Lokesh in America, we did not find any authentic news reports which confirmed it. No international or local news websites published any such news.
A Twitter account named Fact Check TDP has debunked the news stating that it is fake.
News publication ABN Andhrajyothi has also refuted the news of Nara Lokesh’s arrest in America stating that it is fake news.
Though there is no confirmation on where Nara Lokesh is and what happened in America and no authentic information about his whereabouts, the screenshot of ABN andhrajyothy is fake. It was published by an imposter account of ABN Telugu TV channel. The claim is False.
