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| - Recently, a photograph circulated on social media with a claim stating that “Pakistani soldiers were determining a pedestrian’s religion, Hindu or Muslim, by removing his lungi.”
Some X posts with this claim can be found here (archive), here (archive), and here (archive).
Fact Check
The Rumor Scanner Team’s investigation found that the photo does not show a Pakistani soldier verifying a pedestrian’s religious identity by removing his lungi. Instead, it depicts an Indian Army member conducting a weapons search inside the lungi of an individual suspected to be a Pakistani spy.
This photo was identified in the 1972 book ‘Bangladesh: A Brutal Birth‘ by Indian photojournalist Kishor Parekh, specifically on page 22.
The detailed description of the picture indicates that Indian soldiers were searching villagers suspected of being Pakistani spies, including checking inside their lungis for hidden weapons.
In essence, the soldier shown is Indian, not Pakistani, and the activity was a weapons search, not a test of religious identity.
Origins of the Misattribution to the Pakistani Army
The misinterpretation of the photo’s context was traced back to a 2012 research by Nayanika Mookherjee, an anthropologist at Durham University, UK. The misassociation originated from its appearance in a 1972 edition of the Daily Banglar Bani newspaper. The photo was included in a column by Professor Golam Zilani Nazrul Morshed, titled ‘Hanadar’s Base in Jhenaidah Cadet College,’ with a caption suggesting a religious-based inspection.
Since its initial publication, the photo has been widely shared with this incorrect interpretation.
Mookherjee’s research, referencing Parekh’s ‘Bangladesh: A Brutal Birth’, clarifies that the soldier in the image was part of the Indian allied forces, not the Pakistani military.
Further research on Kishor Parekh shows he was born in Bhavnagar, Gujarat, India, and studied filmmaking and documentary photography at the University of Southern California. He visited Bangladesh in December 1971, during the Liberation War, and took seventy-six photographs before December 16. These were published in his 1972 book ‘Bangladesh: A Brutal Birth’.
Bottom Line
In conclusion, the photograph that has been circulating on social media, originally misinterpreted as showing Pakistani soldiers checking a pedestrian’s religious identity by removing his lungi, is actually from a completely different context. It portrays Indian soldiers during a security operation, searching for hidden weapons inside the lungis of individuals suspected to be Pakistani spies.
Additionally, Rumor Scanner already debunked the false interpretation of this photo in a Bengali article in December 2022.
Hence, the assertion that the photograph shows Pakistani soldiers identifying a pedestrian’s religious affiliation by removing his lungi is demonstrably false.
Sources
- Kishor Parekh Book: Bangladesh: A Brutal Birth
- Cambridge.org: The absent piece of skin: Gendered, racialized and territorial inscriptions of sexual violence during the Bangladesh war
- Dhaka Tribune: 1971 in Kishor Parekh’s eyes
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