An Instagram account named icar.india has been identified. It claims itself as the official account of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research.
The account’s bio also writes, “ an autonomous organization under Ministry of Agriculture & Farmer Welfare, Govt.of.India”.
However, another account with the same bio running with the same identity of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research was also identified on Instagram.
Fact Check
To identify the veracity of the accounts, we first checked the official website of the ICAR. In the ‘Contact Us’ section we checked the Instagram handle which is linked to the website. During the process, we found that the Instagram handle that is linked with the website is the ‘officalicarindia’ one.
Furthermore, we found that ICAR, from their official Twitter and Instagram handles, has also clarified that a fake account has been running under their name. They have issued an alert to be careful about their fake Instagram account.
Furthermore, we checked the ‘about’ section of the Fake Instagram account- icar.india. We found that the account has changed its name 7 times before finalizing it as icar.india.
Conclusion
Thus, from the fact check, it is evident that the official Instagram account of ICAR is officialicarindia. The other account icar.india has been identified as Fake.
DFRAC Analysis: Fake Account
