Akhilesh with arrested YouTuber Jyoti Malhotra? No, it’s an edited image

Haryana YouTuber Jyoti Malhotra was recently arrested for allegedly spying for Pakistan and sharing sensitive information. Meanwhile, a photo of Jyoti Malhotra with former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav is going viral on social media.

X user Arun Yadav took a dig at Samajwadi Party for being Muslim supporters and wrote, “What is this traitor Jyoti doing with Samajwadi Party supremo, friends?” (Archived link)

In another tweet, Arun Yadav again made a similar claim by quoting a tweet from Samajwadi Party. (Archived link)

BJP supporter Dilip Kumar Singh also amplified the image. (Archived link)

This photo is being widely shared on X and Facebook with the same claims.

Fact Check

We performed a reverse image search of the viral photo and came across news reports from NDTV and Indian Express dated January 22, 2017. Among them was a picture that looked similar to the viral picture, but the woman seen next to Akhilesh Yadav is not Jyoti Malhotra, but Dimple Yadav, Akhilesh’s wife.

According to the report, this picture is from on January 22, 2017, when Samajwadi Party released its manifesto for the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.

Thhe same photo is also included in a report in The Times of India, which has several images from the event.

We also found several pictures of this programme on the website of gettyimages. The captions state that on January 22, 2017, during a press conference at the Samajwadi Party office in Lucknow, Akhilesh Yadav was seen releasing the Samajwadi Party manifesto along with his wife and Lok Sabha member Dimple Yadav.

Comparing the viral picture and the actual original picture, it is clear that Jyoti Malhotra’s face has been superimposed on Dimple Yadav’s.

To sum up, Akhilesh Yadav and Dimple Yadav released Samajwadi Party’s state election manifesto in 2017. The photo taken during that time was edited and YouTuber Jyoti Malhotra’s face was added to it. And it is being shared with misleading claims.

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