An image of a newspaper cutting is going viral on social media claiming Narendra Modi was held responsible for his father's death by his siblings and an FIR was also filed against him.

Andria D'Souza (username: @RiaRevealed), fellowship member of AIPC tweeted a picture of a newspaper cutting in response to a tweet by Priyanka Gandhi. She shared the image with a statement saying “Narendra Modi is a man with no family values..so let him be..don’t waste your time or get hurt by the man who is held responsible in his own father’s death. In fact, stand with pride that the whole nation is with you on this one.”

A Twitter user @Lala_The_Don accused her of spreading fake stuff. He attached images showing that the image shared by her was not authentic. The images were from a magazine named “Kewal Sach” and some un-named Marathi source that claimed that the newspaper cutting was a fake one.

What did the Newspaper Cutting Say?

The article’s headline said that Narendra Modi’s siblings still hold him responsible for their father’s death and have filed an FIR against him. Further, the article narrates a story of how Narendra Modi’s father once stole RS. 300 (which was equivalent to Rs. 30,000 during that time) and was caught and sentenced for 6 months followed by it. After that he earned money and bought jewelry by the money, Narendra Modi then one day stole the money and fled away. This incident gave his father a heart attack and due to lack of money for the treatment, he passed away.

Was the Story True?

There is no such source on the internet that provides the story of how exactly the father of Narendra Modi died or if there is an FIR filed against the PM. Because of this fact and absence of any official account of the Prime Minister’s life was not possible to verify the story of the death, however, the article itself leaves some mark about its own authenticity. If carefully noticed:

1. No date or place was mentioned in the article and there is a lot of spelling mistake which is unusual.
2. Google search about it doesn't show any relevant result.
3. It mentions the name “Delhi news network” which doesn't exist. Neither is there any news channel/social media account/YouTube channel registered on the internet.
4. Along with these details, the article said that Modi’s father died after he fled the home. However, in a rally in November 2018, Modi said that his father died 30 years ago, which means it happened in the year 1988. Modi was born in the year 1950, accordingly, his age in the year 1988 was 38, suggesting that he left his home at 38. This brings us to another fact about his life: Narendra Modi left his home after a few years after his marriage when he was 17. Considering this true information, it is not possible that his father died because he left his house.

Keeping in mind all these details that the article itself provides us, we can say that it is hard to believe that the incident mentioned in the newspaper cutting happened.

Truth Behind the FIR:

While investigating the same issue, we also contacted Narendra Modi’s younger brother, Mr. Pralhad Modi to know if there was an FIR filed. His statement about this was:

“No such thing had happened. I did not file any FIR against him (Narendra Modi), nor did my sister and brothers.”

His statement clearly shows that not only did they not file an FIR against Modi, but also nothing like mentioned in the newspaper cutting happened with them. He also said that one such rumour was spread earlier as well, where Mr. Pralhad was falsely quoted saying that Modi was kicked out of the house for stealing jewelry. He later clarified that this was just a rumour and nothing like this had happened nor did he quote the statement.

In Conclusion:

Keeping in mind all the above-mentioned details and authentic information, any possibility of the newspaper cutting and the story reported in it is ruled out. It was only a rumour amongst many others that had already existed. The tweet by Andria was also deleted later as it is no more seen on her twitter account. This only tells us that it is evident that this article is a hoax.