DigitEye India Fact Checkers
Amid social media buzz that three ministers of Maldives had made anti-Modi remarks over promoting Lakshadweep islands for tourism, an X (formerly Twitter) message is going viral with a claim that Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu posted a tweet apologising to Indians for insulting such remarks on Modi by his three ministers.
Here’s the screenshot of the message, which has been deleted now:
The tweet with President Muizzu’s official verified account stated: “I apologise to our Indian friends with folded hands-on behalf of our ministers and their irresponsible comments about Prime minister Narendra Modi. Looking forward to welcoming friends from India and strengthening bilateral relations between our nations.”
The tweet was posted on January 7. Several users have retweeted the same with several remarks here and here. However, the three Maldivian ministers have been suspended for their derogatory remarks calling Modi a “clown”, “terrorist”, and “Israeli puppet”.
FACT CHECK
When Digiteye India received a request to fact check the same, we first visited the official account of Maldivian President Muizzu and searched for the tweet which was not found. In fact, he posted his last message on his verified account on January 5, 2024.
The social media monitoring tool Social Blade further helped us that there was no deletion of any message from President Miuzzu after January 5, 2024, thus ruling out the possibility of any missing or deleted tweet on the micro-blogging platform. Further searches for news related to the apology have yielded no credible results so far.
Hence, the tweet purportedly by President Miuzzu personally apologising on Twitter was either morphed or digitally altered. However, the truth is that the three ministers have been fired after their derogatory remarks on PM Modi.
Claim: Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu apologised to Indians for remarks made by his three ministers on PM Modi.
Conclusion: There is no tweet from Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu apologising to Indians on remarks made by his three ministers.
Rating: Misrepresentation — 
