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| - Fact Check: Old and altered photos try to give misleading twist to wrestlers' detention.
The person whose face could be seen being trampled by a policeman's boot was Ranjit Singh, a protestor at Delhi's Singhu border who was beaten up after he allegedly attacked a police officer with a sword.
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India Today Fact Check
The photo with the cop’s boot dates back to 2021 and features a man, not Sakshi Malik, at the farmers’ protest. The photo of the smiling Phogat sisters was digitally manipulated using FaceApp.
On Sunday, May 28, India’s top wrestlers Bajrang Punia, Vinesh Phogat, Sangeeta Phogat, and Sakshi Malik were detained at Jantar Mantar by Delhi Police.
The wrestlers demanding the arrest of former Wrestling Federation of India president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh were planning to march to the site of New Delhi’s new Parliament building (which was being inaugurated by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi) when they were taken in. They were later released.
Among the many photos of the detention that were widely shared on social media was a particularly violent one of a policeman’s boot pressed against the face of a person.
People claimed that the person in the photo was Malik. One such tweet read, “This is Sakshi Malik, the first Indian Olympic medal winner in women's wrestling.” The tweet went on to compare this violent detention with the condition of women in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The archived version of this tweet can be seen here.
Another photo that showed wrestlers Vinesh and Sangeeta Phogat smiling while being detained was widely shared. The photo taken inside what looked like a police bus was compared to photos of the Phogat sisters lying on the road, visibly agitated, while surrounded by the police.
The implication: the wrestlers were putting on a show for the media. One tweet making such a claim asked: “Does the National Sports Federation of India also provide acting classes?”
The archived version of this tweet can be seen here.
India Today’s investigation found that the photo of the cop’s boot on a person’s face dates back to 2021 and features a man, not Sakshi Malik. The photo of the smiling Phogat sisters was digitally manipulated using FaceApp.
Delhi police's boot, but at a different protest
We reverse-searched the photo of the policeman stepping on the face of a person and found a February 2021 Times of India report containing the same image. Per the report, the photograph showed 22-year-old Ranjit Singh’s face being crushed under a cop’s boot.
It was reportedly shot during a mob attack on the farmers’ protest at the Singhu border. Delhi Police accused Ranjit of attacking an SHO with his sword and injuring him. He, along with 43 others, was arrested by Delhi Police the same day under various sections, including the attempt to murder.
The Lallantop reported that this photo was taken on January 29, 2021, at Delhi’s Singhu border. Reportedly, some locals got into an altercation with the protestors over the road being blocked. This is when officers from the Alipur police station along with SHO Pradeep Paliwal reached the spot to calm things down. Allegedly, Ranjit then attacked Paliwal was subsequently beaten up by cops.
This photo of Ranjit Singh, at the time, evoked comparisons to George Floyd, an African-American man who was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in May 2020, and whose death sparked nationwide protests in the US.
The Phogat sisters didn’t smile
We reverse-searched the second photo of the wrestlers smiling inside a police bus and found a tweet by journalist Mandeep Punia, who shared the photo while reporting about the detention of Vinesh and Sangeeta Phogat. While Punia’s photo was the same, what was striking was that no one in it, including the Phogat sisters, appeared to be smiling.
We also found that under the viral tweets, many had commented that the photo was digitally manipulated using FaceApp, a photo and video editing tool that uses AI to alter facial features.
India Today used FaceApp to add smiles to the faces of the Phogat sisters in the photo shared by Mandeep Punia. The result was the same photo that is now going viral. The whole process has been demonstrated in the video below.
We Also found a tweet by wrestler Bajrang Punia, who shared the two photos, the one with the smiles, and the one without. The word “Fake” was stamped on the smiling photo. Punia tweeted: “The IT Cell people are spreading this false picture. We make it clear that a complaint will be filed against whoever posts this fake picture.”
This isn’t the first time the wrestlers’ protest has attracted misinformation. Recently, a video of a rally organised by the Kerala Youth Congress in support of the farmers’ protest in 2021 went viral as a rally in solidarity with the wrestlers. Read India Today’s detailed report here. This isn’t also the first time that FaceApp was used to spread misinformation. Read our report on one such case right here.
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