A claim is going viral on the Internet stating Javelin from the statue of world champion Neeraj Chopra, is being stolen even after Police patrolling in Meerut.
The Meerut Development Authority has recently beautified the number of Junctions in Meerut. Under this process, the authority has installed the statues of several players at the Hapur Adda intersection for the sports city promotion. Among these statutes, international athlete Neeraj Chopra’s statue can be seen throwing the Javelin. Many news websites have claimed that the Javelin from Neeraj Chopra’s statue has been stolen at the Hapur Adda intersection.
NBT Uttar Pradesh posted a video on Twitter(X) showing the statue of Neeraj Chopra without a Javelin and wrote: “Javelin stolen from world champion Neeraj Chopra’s statue in Meerut”
Another news website named Bharat Samachar also shared this video making a similar claim.
Not only this, but several media outlets including Report1 Bharat, Noidakhabar, and Darshniksamachar also posted this video on Twitter(X) with similar claims.
Fact-Check
To verify the claims made through the above viral video, the DFRAC team searched for some Keywords in the context of the viral claim. Meanwhile, the team found a press brief note by Meerut police on Twitter(X) refuting the viral claim and disclosing that a fake Javelin has been replaced by a real javelin on the statue.
Following this, we found a news article published by the Well-known news website Aajtak with the headline: “UP: News of Javelin being stolen from Neeraj Chopra’s statue in Meerut, police told the truth”. According to this news article, “Such news related to international athlete Neeraj Chopra came to light in Meerut, UP that the administration was shocked. Actually, the news had spread that the javelin had been stolen from the statue of Neeraj Chopra. As soon as this came to light, the police also started investigating. However, later it was told by the police that the Javelin was not stolen but it was replaced as part of beautification of the intersection”.(English Translation)
Conclusion
It is clear from DFRAC ‘s Fact-Check that the Javelin from Neeraj Chopra’s statue in Meerut has not been stolen. In fact, it is replaced by the real javelin. Hence, the claim of NBT Uttar Pradesh including other media outlets is completely false and misleading.
