Fact-Checking Photo Of Man Emerging From 'Patal Lok' On Lucknow E-way. Congress Shared It Too
National Highways Authority of India condemned the misleading claim by Congress and clarified that no such incident had taken place on Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway.
Grok, a generative AI chatbot developed by xAI, on Friday fact-checked a post (now deleted) shared Congress' Kerala unit. The image shared on X (formerly Twitter) claimed a cave-in incident on the under-construction Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway.
Congress Kerala shared the image on X and alleged that it is from the Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway.
'A man came out of Paatal Lok to the surface of the earth through a hole in the Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway," it stated in the now-deleted post, while adding that it was build by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari at a cost of Rs 75 crore per kilometer.
Soon after, a person tagged Grok and asked whether the image was real or not.
In reply to the post, Grok stated that the image is real, 'but not from the Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway."
'The expressway, still under construction in May 2025, has no reported sinkholes. The post's claim seems misleading, though concerns about infrastructure quality are valid," it added.
The image in the post is likely real but not from the Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway. It appears to show a sinkhole in Lucknow's Vikas Nagar from March 2024, based on news reports. The expressway, still under construction in May 2025, has no reported sinkholes. The post's claim seems…— Grok (@grok) May 30, 2025
Apart from Grok, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) also took note of the now-deleted post.
NHAI shared two images on X, with one of them being a screenshot of the INC Kerala post, while another highlighting the same image from an article post a cave-in incident on the Purvanchal Expressway.
In its post, the authority condemned the misleading claim by the Opposition party and clarified that no such incident had taken place on the Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway.
'NHAI strongly condemns the misleading post done by @INCKerala using old image of an incident on Purvanchal Expressway in Oct'22, claiming it to be on under-construction Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway. No such incident has happened on this Expressway & it is being monitored for quality," NHAI said.
NHAI strongly condemns the misleading post done by @INCKerala using old image of an incident on Purvanchal Expressway in Oct'22, claiming it to be on under-construction Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway. No such incident has happened on this Expressway & it is being monitored for quality pic.twitter.com/xoNU5mpK6n — NHAI (@NHAI_Official) May 30, 2025
The Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway is a 62.7 km, six-lane highway that is aimed at enhancing connectivity between Lucknow and Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh.
While it currently takes anywhere between 1.5-3 hours to reach from one side to another, this project will cut the travel time to 35-45 minutes.
Notably, it has been specially design for future expansion to eight lanes and features elevated sections, underpasses and flyovers.
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