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| - Fact Check: Hindu woman who organised sehri for Kashmiri girl was not attacked by RSS
A post claiming "RSS goons" attacked a Hindu woman because she organised sehri for a Kashmiri Muslim girl during Ramadan has gone viral.
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India Today Fact Check
Both photos are unrelated and the women are different. While one of the women did organise sehri for a Kashmiri Muslim girl, the other was injured in riots in Gujarat's Khambat.
A collage of two photos is going viral on social media with the claim that "RSS goons" attacked a Hindu woman because she organised sehri for a Kashmiri Muslim girl during Ramadan.
One of the photos in the collage shows a woman standing beside a girl in hijab who's having her meal. The other photo shows an injured woman crying. This woman has applied turmeric on her bleeding nose.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the claim to be false. Both the photos are unrelated and the women seen in them are different. The woman on the left did organise sehri for a Kashmiri Muslim girl in Jammu last week, but she was not attacked. The other woman was injured in communal violence in Gujarat's Khambat in February this year.
Facebook page "Sach News Kashmir" posted the collage with the caption, "THE RSS goons has attacked on a Hindu woman who attempt sehri for a muslim Kashmiri girl in recent days. India is occupied by RSS.they have full control over media,judiciary,law enforcement & national securities. Would this country remain stable if this remains carried on.!!!!"
The archived version of the post can be seen here. This post has gone viral on Facebook and Twitter.
AFWA investigation
First photo
Using a combination of reverse image search and keywords, we found some Twitter users from Kashmir who had posted the uncropped version of the photo. One such user, "Rafqat Sonwaire", had tweeted the photo, giving credit to Facebook user "Preduman Goja".
Ramzan Mubarak.
Waqtay Sahar.
NO VIRUS can deter us from sharing, caring, mutual love and respect.
Source Facebook :-Predumangoja pic.twitter.com/wT8UcVXN9k — Rafqat Sonwaire (@RafqatSonwaire) April 24, 2020
With this hint, we dug deeper and found that a Facebook user from Jammu named "Preduman Goja" was the first person to post the picture on social media.
AFWA reached out to Preduman Goja, a Kashmiri Pandit, for details regarding the photo. He clarified to us that the viral post is totally fake and his wife who's seen in the photo was not attacked. The injured woman in the viral post is someone else, he said.
Goja told us that the young girl seen in the picture is a resident of Kashmir's Sopore who is at present staying with them. The girl had come to Jammu to appear for a medical entrance examination and got stuck due to the lockdown.
Goja said they wake up early to serve sehri to the girl because it's the month of Ramadan and she is not with her family. He said the two families have known each other for many years. This kind gesture was also covered by the media.
Second photo
Using reverse image search, we found that some social media users had posted the picture in February this year, claiming that the woman was injured during communal violence in Gujarat's Khambat town.
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pic.twitter.com/KyocsakksJ — (@itz_metoo) February 23, 2020
A Gujarati news channel had also used this picture in a YouTube video, saying it was from the communal riots in Khambhat in February this year.
This picture went viral at that time too. So with the help of our local reporter, we contacted the son of the injured woman seen in the photo.
The woman's name is Harshaben Bhavasar and she is a resident of Khambhat town. Her son Paresh told AFWA that the viral post is false and this picture of her mother is two months old when she got injured during communal clashes in the town in late February this year. Her mother is perfectly fine now, he said.
Paresh also sent us a recent picture of his mother.
Therefore, it is clear that the viral claim of a Hindu woman beaten up by RSS for organising sehri for a Kashmiri Muslim girl is bogus. Both photos in the viral post are unrelated and the women seen in them are different. It is also confirmed that the woman who had organised sehri for the Kashmiri Muslim girl was not attacked.
-With inputs by Nachiket Mehta from Khambhat
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