Ashoke Pandit lashes out after fake news & morphed time stamp on his tweet; gives proof

Fake news was perpetrated by the Congress and others following Republic Media Network Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami and wife Samyabrata Ray Goswami, Editor of Republic TV, being attacked early on Thursday. One of the screenshots going viral was about the ‘metadata mismatch’ over the time at which the post-attack video message by Arnab was shot and when it was uploaded on Twitter. While Republic TV busted this news, another one that was also claimed has been used to allude that Ashoke Pandit tweeted about it even before the incident took place.

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The filmmaker took to Twitter to slam the fake news, by providing proof. Pandit responded to one of the tweets, that had posted screenshots of his tweet condemning the attack at 12.55 am on Thursday, and another of BJP spokersperson Sambit Patra at 1.05 am, along with a screenshot of the Twitter handle of Republic TV, sharing the news a minute after Patra’s tweet. Ashoke Pandit urged the sharer to stop ‘embarrassing’ himself and posted screenshots of the moment when the news had broken on the channel at 12.44 am, more than ten minutes before his tweet.

Here’s the tweet 

Ashoke Pandit also shared that there was another fake tweet that was doing the rounds in his name. In the tweet, the time stamp condemning the attack on Arnab Goswami and Samyabarata Ray Goswami is mentioned at 8.25 am on Wednesday, before the attack took the place. The diretor fumed at the ‘usual suspects’ over the fake time stamp, and warned Twitter of legal recourse if action was not taken against the accounts.

He also shared the link of his actual tweet.

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Here’s the tweet:

Earlier, some screenshots of the metadata of Arnab Goswami’s video being at 8.17 pm, the day before, did the rounds. However, netizens had busted it by sharing how time zones could be manipulated to showcase a different time. Many of the netizens then rightly posted how the time was showing 1.39 am, over an hour after the attack took place. The claim had also been shared by the Congress IT cell chief.

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Two Congress Youth workers have been arrested after they physically assaulted Arnab and Samyabrata Ray Goswami. The goons chased the senior editors’ car, tried to break the glass window, hurled bottles and splashed a liquid on the car, made abusive gestures, before overtaking the vehicle. The goons admitted they were sent by the higher ups to carry out the attack. 

The arrest was made after a delay in registering the complaint and a watering down of charges, with the police refusing to name Congress in the complaint. Leaders across political parties and celebrities from the film industry condemned the attack.

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