Old, Unrelated Images Passed Off as I-T Raid on Stalin’s Daughter

Most of the images are as old as 2017 and have no connection with the current raids. 

(Photo: Kamran Akhter/The Quint)

A set of old images is being circulated on the back of the I-T raids at the house and office of DMK President and chief ministerial candidate MK Stalin’s daughter and his son-in-law Senthamarai and Sabareesan ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.

However, these images are old and have nothing to do with the current raids.

CLAIM

Images showing stacks of cash and jewellery are being shared on Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp to push the claim that a huge recovery was made from the house of Stalin’s daughter.

An archive version of the tweet can be found here.(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

The claim is also being shared along with a few more pictures on Facebook and on WhatsApp. (You can view an archived version of the posts here, here and here.)

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

1. The Income Tax department said that they found “incriminating” material on tax evasion during the searches they conducted on people related to the DMK leadership. However, no information on cash or jewellery being seized was made by the department.
2. When we got down to verifying the images we found out that almost all of them were old and unrelated to the current raids.

IMAGE 1

(Source: Twitter/Altered by The Quint)

On conducting a reverse image search we came across a news report on Tamil daily Dina Thanthi, which also goes by the name of Daily Thanthi, published on 2 November 2019. The article carried the same picture and mentioned that the Rs 2,000 notes, worth Rs 6.5 crore, were recovered from Telangana.

We then ran a keyword search and came across another article published on the same date in Financial Express. This article carried an ANI tweet, which had the same picture.

Clearly, this image can’t be from the ongoing raids as it existed way back in 2019.

IMAGE 2

(Source: Twitter)

On conducting a reverse image search we came across an article on The Economic Times published in January 2017, which carried the same image. The article was titled ‘Notes ban: I-T dept gets over Rs 300 crore declarations under PMGKY.’

We also came across multiple other stories on various publications, which had used this picture as a representational image through the years. East Mojo used the picture in 2019 in an election-related story, The Times of India also used the photo in an election-related story in 2019.

Though we haven’t found the origin of the picture, the fact that it existed in 2017 makes it clear that it is not from the current raids.

IMAGE 3

(Source: Twitter)

On conducting a reverse image search we came across a PTI article published on BloombergQuint in April 2019. The story mentioned that I-T sleuths had recovered cash from a godown, which reportedly belonged to an associate of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Vellore.

Other news outlets such as The News Minute also carried the same story along with the same picture and mentioned that cash was found inside gunny sacks, big shopping bags, and cardboard boxes.

IMAGE 4

(Source: Twitter)

This image is from the raids at the residence of Stalin’s son-in-law Sabareesan and daughter. The image was credited to The Hindu journalist M Karunakaran and was used in multiple stories by the daily.

IMAGE 5

(Source: Facebook)

On conducting a reverse image search, we came across an article on Hindustan Times published on 11 December 2016. The article carried this picture, which was attributed to news agency PTI.

It mentioned that the I-T department seized cash worth Rs 5.7 crore in new notes, Rs 90 lakh in old notes and 32 kg bullion and jewellery from the Chitradurga district in Karnataka.

IMAGE 6

(Source: Facebook)

On conducting a reverse image search on the collage, we came across an article on Outlook published in July 2018, which carried this same picture.

The article mentioned that Rs 163 crore cash and 100 kg gold was seized from a construction firm in Tamil Nadu. Multiple premises of the firm were reportedly raided.

Clearly, old and unrelated pictures have been used in the backdrop of the raids at MK Stalin’s daughter and son-in-law’s residence and office.

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