An image is being widely shared on social media in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Draupadi Murmu are seen holding a picture of Captain Vijayakanth, aka Vijayaraj Alagarswami, actor and former Member of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly.
The image is shared with a caption suggesting that it shows a postal stamp of Captain Vijayakanth being launched by the Centre, honouring him.
A social media user shared the image and wrote, “Captain Vijayakanth’s postal stamp has been released #captainvijayakanth #narendramodi #postinstagram #facbookpost.” (Translated from Hindi)
SouthCheck found that the claim is false. The viral image is AI-generated.
We searched with relevant keywords to find if any postal stamps were named in the memory of Captain Vijayakanth and found no such reports.
We further found that the text embedded in the image read, “சினிமா Tamil CinemaFansChannel | All Rights Reserved”.
Using this information, we checked and found that the Instagram user had shared the same image in a post on January 29, with the caption that reads, “Captain Vijayakanth postage stamp released #captainvijayakanth #narendramodi #postinstagram #facbookpost” (Translated from Hindi)
Scrolling through the Instagram page, we found many images and videos of prominent celebrities and politicians together. However, the images put them in scenarios which are improbable. For example, a video of US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi participating in a Hindu religious public procession together. More such posts can be seen here, here and here.
This confirmed that the videos and images on the Instagram account were artificially created.
Coming back to the purported postal stamp of Captain Vijayakanth, the image showed many signs which hinted that it was also fake.
Original postal stamps issued by the government have text written in Hindi, too. While in the viral postal stamp of Captain Vijayakanth, the texts were in English and Tamil. Moreover, the viral postal stamp has no cost written on it.
We also ran the image through the AI-detection tool Hive Moderation and found that the image is 99.8 per cent AI-generated.
Hence, we can ascertain that the viral image is AI-generated. The claim is false.
