September 10 saw the Indian National Congress party shutting the nation down in a Bharat Bandh in protest of the constant rise in prices of petrol and diesel under the NDA government.

The Bandh was moderately successful in place, as the nation saw unrest. However a bizarre news came out of the Bandh and that was of former India captain MS Dhoni joining the protest and supporting Bharat Bandh. The news was peddled on social media platform Twitter.

Many users shared a photo of MS Dhoni sitting at a petrol pump along with wife Sakshi and a few friends. 

A user named Arun Thakur too tweeted a similar photo of MS Dhoni with a similarly added the comment “I stopped playing the helicopter shot because I couldn’t afford petrol at Rs 90/litre.”

His tweet, which was later deleted by him, was retweeted by National Spokesperson of Congress, Priyanka Chaturvedi. However, it was deleted after a user busted the tweet as fake and called out the user on Twitter.

TRUTH

MS Dhoni never participated in any bandh or protest of any kind. The image that has been peddled as the proof of his participation, was actually taken at at a Hindustan Petroleum pump in Himachal Pradesh’s Shimla this August. Dhoni along with Sakshi and his hair stylist Sapna Bhavnani had visited Himachal for an ad shoot.

A simple reverse image search with the image revealed the truth. Bhavnani had retweeted a fan page’s image of MS Dhoni, Sakshi and her sitting at the petrol pump during the shoot. Confirming that the photo was not taken on September 10, Bhavnani said to TOI, "Yes, this photo was clicked on August 29 in Shimla. We had travelled to Shimla for an ad shoot."