Photo of suicide victim misleadingly linked to controversial Indian army policy
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on July 1, 2022 at 03:14
- Updated on July 1, 2022 at 03:15
- 4 min read
- By Anuradha PRASAD, AFP India
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As protests raged across India in June 2022 over an army recruitment scheme, a graphic photo showing part of the body of a suicide victim was shared in social media posts linking the young man's death to the controversial plan. However, the image was published in Hindi newspaper Dainik Bhaskar in April 2022, months before the policy was announced.
The photo, which shows the legs of a person who has apparently taken their own life, featured in a Hindi-language newspaper article headlined: "Murdered by unemployment".
"Dad, I could not become a soldier in this life but I will definitely make it in the next one," reads the subheading, which was supposedly quoting a note the suicide victim left behind.
The article reported that the suspension of army recruitment drives during the pandemic meant that hundreds of thousands of aspiring recruits were now too old to apply.
A screenshot of the newspaper article was posted on June 18 on an Instagram account with more than 42,000 followers.
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The Instagram post reads "#agnipath", referring to a short-term military recruitment scheme announced on June 14, 2022 that has sparked violent protests across India.
The image was shared in similar posts linking the man's to the Agnipath scheme here and here on Facebook; and here and here on Twitter.
The plan to recruit up to 50,000 young people into the armed forces to serve for four years -- with only one quarter of these recruits retained beyond that period -- is a significant change in a country where army roles are seen as lifetime jobs.
Protests have raged in several cities around India and have been especially fierce in the eastern state of Bihar, which has some of the country's highest unemployment and poverty rates.
While there have been local media reports (here and here) about suicides against the backdrop of the protests, the photo shared online was taken before the Agnipath scheme was announced.
Old newspaper photo
A reverse image search found the photo published in an article from April 29, 2022 by a national Hindi-language daily Dainik Bhaskar.
Content warning
The report named the suicide victim in the photo as a 23-year-old man named Pawan who took his own life in the northern state of Haryana.
It said the aspiring soldier was no longer able to join the army following the suspension of recruitment drives during the pandemic, which meant he was now too old to join the armed forces.
The young man's death was covered by various local media outlets, including here and here.
The photo was taken by Dainik Bhaskar stringer Bhupendra Sihag, who told AFP he took it on April 27, 2022.
Sihag provided AFP with the full photo of the victim, which AFP has cropped below.
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