Fact Check: Old image from Kashmir linked to Delhi violence
A picture showing security personnel kicking a man is going viral on social media with a sarcastic claim that this was how Delhi Police appealed to Muslims for peace.
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India Today Fact Check
The picture was taken at least four years ago in Kashmir.
A picture showing security personnel kicking a man is going viral on social media with a sarcastic claim that this was how Delhi Police appealed to Muslims for peace.
Facebook user Naween Kumar Sah posted the picture along with the misleading claim, which was shared more than 350 times till the filing of this story. The archived version can be seen here.
The picture is also viral on Twitter, with netizens linking it to the recent Delhi violence.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the claim to be false. The picture was taken at least four years back in Kashmir.
We could not find any news report that could give us details about the viral picture. We, however, found that the same picture was uploaded on Facebook in March 2016 with a claim in Bangla. This picture had a copyright signature of one Sofi Ahsan.
India Today searched for Sofi Ahsan on the Internet and found a journalist by the same name who hails from Kashmir and is currently working with The Indian Express in Chandigarh. AFWA reached out to Sofi and he confirmed that the photo was captured by him during a protest in Srinagar some years back.
Sofi said, The picture is from Kashmir. I can confirm it with all certainty because I have other pictures of the same paramilitary forces in action too. I had clicked it some years back when I was covering a protest in Srinagar. However, I would also want to add that the person in the picture wasn’t a protestor. He should not be identified as such, if he’s to be identified.
Sofi also sent some other pictures of the same incident showing the same man in yellow kurta as seen in the viral picture.
Therefore, it is clear that the viral post is misleading and the image is not from Delhi but Kashmir.
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