Officials said this photo shows goat meat recovered at a station in southern India in 2018
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on December 12, 2019 at 08:30
- 2 min read
- By AFP India
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The screenshot was published here on Facebook on November 26, 2019. It has been shared more than 800 times.
Below is a screenshot of the misleading post:
The Hindi-caption, written phonetically in the Roman alphabet, translates to English as: “Today, 500 kilograms of dog meat was found at Nashik station. This meat is supplied every day in eateries, restaurants, and hotels in Mumbai nearby areas. A list of such places, where this meat is supplied, will come out very soon. Please eat vegetarian food in hotels and restaurants.”
Nashik is a city in the western Indian state of Maharashtra roughly 167 kilometers north of Mumbai, Maharashtra’s capital city.
Posts with a similar claim were published here and here on Facebook and here and here on Twitter.
Other similar claims have been shared that specify different locations. Posts were published here and here claiming the dog meat was found in a town in eastern India and here claiming it was found in a town in the southwest state of Goa.
All the claims are false; the photo in the WhatsApp screenshot actually shows police at a railway station in Chennai, Tamil Nadu seizing meat that health officials later identified as goat.
“We sent the meat for lab tests and waited for a report, and the report revealed that it was goat meat and not dog meat as misrepresented by media,” Dr. R. Kathiravan, a Designated Officer at the Tamil Nadu Food Safety & Drug Administration Department, told AFP by phone on December 11.
Kathiravan said the meat was found at Chennai's Egmore Railway station.
A reverse image search on Google also found this Tamil-language news report published on November 22, 2018, that features the same image as the one used in the misleading posts.
The headline, translated to English, reads: “It is not dog but goat meat, claims forensic results.”
Below is a screenshot of the article:
Bangalore-based news outlet The News Minute reported the incident involved dog meat here on November 17, 2018 but five days later, it published this article clarifying that officials determined the seized meat was sheep or goat, not dog.
“We never said it was dog meat, it was a media speculation,” Kathiravan stated.
The Hindu, a major Indian newspaper, also published a story on the expert’s findings here on November 23, 2018.
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