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| - Fact Check: Image of Kashmiri students pelting stones circulated with misleading claim
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that both pictures were taken after the BJP came to power at the Centre.
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India Today Fact Check
Both images were taken during BJP rule at the Centre.
A set of two pictures one showing a group of schoolgirls pelting stones and the other of some children holding Indian flags is circulating on social media with the claim that it shows the situation in Kashmir during the Congress and BJP regimes respectively.
The archived version can be seen here.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that both pictures were taken after the BJP came to power at the Centre.
Image of girls pelting stones
Using reverse image search, we found the same picture carried in 2017 in several news reports with credits to Kashmiri journalist Farooq Khan of European Pressphoto Agency (EPA).
A search on the EPA website led us to the original image. According to the caption, the picture was taken during a clash that broke out between Kashmiri students and the police on April 26, 2017, in Srinagar.
The caption further said that the unrest started since April 15, 2017, when security forces raided a college in Pulwama during which over four dozen students were allegedly injured.
“The Washington Post” had also carried the picture in an article in which it said this was the first time in recent history that girl students joined male protesters in Kashmir.
Around the same time, in May 2017, similar visuals of girl students pelting stones on security personnel at Anantnag were also captured.
Therefore, it is clear that the viral picture was not taken during Congress rule, but three years after the BJP came to power at the Centre.
Image of kids holding Tricolour
The earliest available version of this picture is from January 26, 2021. While the image was widely shared as from Republic Day celebration in Kashmir, we could not find any credible source for it.
Some children in the picture are seen wearing masks. This implies that the image was mostly probably taken after the Covid-19 pandemic broke out. A closer look at the building behind the children reveals some letters written on the hoarding Y GOODWILL S” and “DIPORA”.
The Army Goodwill School is a system of schools in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh run by the Indian Army. Taking a cue from this, we further searched the Internet and found an Army Goodwill School campus in Kashmir’s Bandipora district.
We also contacted the Kashmir bureau of India Today. Our photojournalist from Kashmir who was present at the Army Goodwill School in Bandipora on January 26, 2021, confirmed that there was a Republic Day celebration at the school this year and the building seen in the image is the school’s administrative block.
Stone-pelting in Kashmir
According to data provided by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in response to an RTI application, the year 2019 recorded the maximum number (684) of stone-pelting incidents in Jammu and Kashmir, compared to 2017 and 2018. The spike in numbers appeared after August, the month in which Jammu and Kashmir’s special status was revoked.
In September 2020, replying to a question in Rajya Sabha, then MoS Home G Kishan Reddy had said that Jammu and Kashmir witnessed 206 incidents of terrorism from August 5, 2019, when Article 370 was abrogated, to August 31, 2020. According to the ministry, 443 such incidents were recorded from July 2018 to August 2019.
During the same period between 2019 and 2020, the ministry said 310 stone-pelting incidents were recorded, as opposed to 703 such incidents between 2018 and 2019.
(With inputs from Rouf A Roshangar in Srinagar)
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