The 20-year-old woman was allegedly gang-raped and tortured on September 14 by four men from her village in Hathras. After fighting for her life for two weeks, she died in Safdarjung hospital Delhi on September 29.  Her family's pain turned into unending horror as the UP police allegedly forced them to cremate her dead body around 2.30 am.

The act has generated waves of shock and outrage across the country, and the Yogi Adityanath government and UP police had faced a lot of criticism.

Amid this, a picture of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is going viral on social media with the claim that Yogi was watching live the forced cremation of the Hathras gang-rape victim on a laptop.

A Facebook user Lokesh Kumar shared the post with a claim that "An incompetent chief minister of Uttar Pradesh watching 'live' how the Hathras rape victim was burnt by the UP Police". (Translated from Hindi)

The viral post received 1,000 likes and 424 shares at the time of writing this article.

Fact Check 

In our investigation, we found that the viral claim is false. This is the photoshopped image. The original image shows Yogi Adityanath is video-conferencing with the victim’s family.

After doing a reverse image search on google, we found that in the original image, the CM can be seen holding a video-conference with the father of the Hathras victim. 

According to a report, after facing nationwide anger over a woman's gang-rape and death in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras and the manner in which the police cremated her in the middle of the night against her family's wishes, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath spoke to the family in the evening via video-conference on September 30.

On September 30, ANI posted the picture with the caption, "Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath speaks to the family of #Hathras gang-rape victim, via video conferencing."

In the image tweeted by ANI, the same laptop can be seen and the screen has been blurred as the chief minister Yogi Adityanath is speaking to the victim's father whose face has been blurred.

ANI also tweeted the father’s response, "I spoke to CM Yogi today. He has assured us that we will get justice. It is true that we didn’t get to see our daughter. We are hopeful that we will get justice"

Below is the Comparision of both the viral and original image:

In conclusion, the viral claim that Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath watched Hathras victim’s ‘live’ cremation on a laptop is false. The viral image is photoshopped. The original image shows Yogi Adityanath speaking to the victim’s family via video-conferencing.