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| - Fact Check: Unrelated image shared as police action against protesting farmers
According to the reports, the picture is from the violence that broke out at the tractor rally on Republic Day.
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India Today Fact Check
While the image of a Nihang Sikh waving a sword at policemen is from the January 26 tractor rally, the second picture of the injured man is from December 2020. This man had met with a road accident in Punjab en route Delhi.
Scores of farmers and policemen were injured in the violence that erupted during the tractor rally in Delhi on Republic Day. Social media too is filled with pictures of the clashes.
Amid this, an image collage, one of a Nihang Sikh waving a sword at security personnel and another of an old man with a bandaged head and bruises on his face, is viral on social media with the claim that it is how police responded to the farmer who tried to attack them.
The caption in Kannada along with one such image collage translates to, “This is the condition of a fake farmer who waved a sword at police.”
Similar claims in Hindi translate to, “Look at what happened to him. Before and After”.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the claim to be misleading. While the first image of the Nihang Sikh is from January 26, the second one is of a farmer belonging to Kirti Kisan Union who met with a road accident in December last year.
AFWA probe
A reverse image search revealed that the first picture was carried in several news reports on January 26. According to the reports, the picture is from the violence that broke out at the tractor rally on Republic Day.
“The Indian Express”, which carried the picture, captioned it as, “A Nihang supporter of farmers clashes with police at Ghazipur border during their ‘Kisan Gantantra Parade’.”
According to the post, the men in the images are members of Kirti Kisan Union who met with an accident while they were on their way to join the protesting farmers at Delhi’s borders.
When we did a reverse search of the second picture, we found it on Facebook among a set of images of a mangled tractor and some Sikh men with bruises on their faces. This post was made by Facebook page “Kirti Kisan Union” on December 28, 2020.
The verified Facebook page of Bikram Singh Majithia, the general secretary of Shiromani Akali Dal, had also posted the same set of images on December 27, 2020, wishing a speedy recovery to the injured farmers.
We also found a “News18 Punjab” report published on December 28, 2020, confirming that the pictures are of a road accident that took place near Khanna in Punjab.
For better clarity, we reached out to Jitender Singh, the Punjab state secretary of Kirti Kisan Union, who confirmed that the picture is more than a month old.
“The image is of an accident that took place near Khanna on December 26, 2020. There were almost twelve people in that tractor including our union members and some Nihang Sikhs from Wadala village. They were on their way to Delhi when their tractor was hit by another vehicle from behind,” Singh said.
“While two of our members were severely injured in the head, others had minor injuries. After primary treatment, they continued for Delhi and are presently at the Kundli border. The Nihang Sikhs dispersed from the accident spot. Our members still have bruises on their faces,” Singh added.
Assistant sub-inspector of Doraha police station Gurmail Singh who had visited the accident site in December last year also confirmed the incident.
Hence, it is clear that the image of an old man with bruises on his face and a bandage on his head is of a Kirti Kisan Union member who had met with a road accident in Punjab almost a month before the Republic Day violence in Delhi.
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