By Hazel Gandhi
The photos of one Ashoka Hotel in Alapuzzha, Kerala being raided and charged for serving dog meat to customers under the guise of mutton have been going viral online. BOOM has found the claims to be false, and the actual incident is from Howrah in May 2018. Even in Howrah, the Ashoka Hotel was accused of serving rotten meat. There is no mention of any eatery being caught serving dog meat.
On Facebook, this incident is going viral with 4 photos:
1. The facade of the Ashoka Hotel
2. A pack of dogs in a shed or kennel-type structure
3. A dog skinned from the neck down
The caption being shared with these photos reads, "When the dog meat was raided by the hotel in Alappuzha. These hoteliers were cooking dog meat and selling it by mistake as mutton."
(Original text in Malayalam: ആലപ്പുഴയിൽ ഹോട്ടൽ റെയിഡ് ചെയ്ത് പട്ടി ഇറച്ചി പിടിച്ചപ്പോൾ. ഈ ഹോട്ടലുകാർ പട്ടിയിറച്ചി പാ ചകം ചെയ്തു മട്ടൻ ആണെന്ന് തെറ്റുധരിപ്പിച്ചു വില്പന നടത്തുക യായിരുന്നു.)
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the photos have originated from different incidents and posts, and have been culminated to make this false claim around a hotel in Alapuzzha, Kerala.
Image 1: The Ashoka Hotel
We ran a reverse image search on Google of this photo, and found that the Ashoka Hotel is actually in Howrah, Kolkata, not Alapuzzha, Kerala. The hotel's website has a similar photo of the entrance as shown in the viral photos.
Here is a comparison of the two pictures:
Moreover, we also found reports of the hotel being raided in 2018 in connection to a rotten meat selling racket. According to this report by The Times of India, several hotels in Kolkata were being supplied rotten meat procured from nearby dumping grounds. A report by NDTV also spoke about the incident. Neither reports have identified the type of meat, let alone mentioning dog meat.
Image 2: Pack of dogs
A reverse image search of the photo of the pack of dogs led us to a Shutterstock image, that in its description, wrote about how Thai officials rescued almost 1000 dogs from being smuggled to Vietnam.
To look for news reports about this, we ran a reverse image search of the photo again, this time with keywords like "Thai and Vietnam". This led us to an article by Dogster that reported about the increased demand for dog meat in Vietnam.
The story by Dogster attributes its information to a 2013 report by The Guardian which reports on the same matter.
BOOM could not independently verify the source of the image, but it is at least as old as 2013 and not from India.
Image 3: Dog skinned
BOOM has chosen not to include the photo due to its graphic nature.
A reverse image search of the dog on Google led us to a report by Persian website, Ahrargil, from June 2015. The report, while using this photo, debunked the claim that the incident of a sausage factory being busted in Mashhad, Iran is recent. The report also informed that the actual incident happened in 2013, and the perpetrators were caught.
Hence, the three photos have been taken from separate incidents to claim that dog meat was used in the Ashoka Hotel in Alapuzzha, Kerala.
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