A newspaper clipping about a BJP leader arrested for child trafficking along with a picture of Home Minister Amit Shah standing beside a woman is doing rounds on social media. It is being claimed that the woman standing beside Shah is West Bengal BJP leader Juhi Chowdhury, who was arrested for child trafficking.
The caption of the post in Hindi read: “तड़ीपार अमित शाह की करीबी…बंगाल भाजपा नेता जूही चौधरी बच्चों की तस्करी में गिरफ़्तार…“
(Translation: Amit Shah’s close aid… Bengal BJP leader Juhi Chaudhary arrested in child trafficking case)
The above post can be found here.
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FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the above post and found it to be false.
Firstly, we ran a Google search with relevant keywords and we found a video on YouTube published by India Today on March 1, 2017, covering the incident. The title of the video read, “BJP Leader, Juhi Chaudhary Arrested In Connection With Child Trafficking In Bengal.”
As per the video, West Bengal CID arrested Juhi Chaudhary near the Indo-Nepal border on March 1, 2017. She was accused of being involved in the smuggling of at least 17 children. Some other people were also arrested in this case.
Further, we found that the incident was covered by Hindustan Times on March 2, 2017. The headline of the report read, “BJP removes leader Juhi Chowdhury arrested for alleged child trafficking in Bengal”.
Then, we put the picture though Reverse Image Search and found the picture on Pamela Goswami’s Facebook page uploaded on November 7, 2020.
In conclusion, upon analysing our findings, it can be stated that the woman standing beside Shah is not Juhi Chowdhury but Pamela Goswami.
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