Posts falsely identify activist as mother of infant abandoned in Sri Lankan train

This article is more than one year old.
Published on March 28, 2023 at 04:00
2 min read
By AFP Sri Lanka

Social media posts in Sri Lanka have shared a photo of a woman who participated in protests against former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, falsely claiming she is the mother of a baby abandoned at a train toilet. But local police have actually identified another woman as the mother, while the activist shown in the photo denounced the posts for "unduly targeting" her.

The photograph was shared on Facebook on March 12, 2023.

The Sinhala language text on the image reads as: "Behold the gift that the aragalaya (protests) gave her."

Screenshot of the Facebook post captured on March 15, 2023.

The posts began circulating just days after local media reported about an infant abandoned by young parents inside a train toilet.

The word "aragalaya," which means struggle, refers to the series of protests against then-Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa that began in April 2022, during which the public demanded his resignation over the island's most painful economic downturn since independence in 1948.

Hundreds of people occupied a plot of land adjacent to the Presidential Secretariat since April 2022 and ended up taking permanent space in the land for nearly three months, which had become known as the "GotaGoGama (village)".

The photo was also used to make the same false claim on Facebook here and here.

Comments left by viewers of the posts indicated they believed it showed the infant's mother and that the unplanned pregnancy was the result of "loose morals" at GotaGoGama.

One user wrote, "We warned about this early on. Parents should not have allowed young girls to come to such places. Now an an innocent life is suffering."

Another wrote, "What a shame! They went there to fix the country but instead have done irreparable damage to themselves."

Mistaken identity

Speaking to AFP in response to the false posts, a spokesperson for the police headquarters in the capital Colombo identified the mother of the baby as Manikkam Lochani.

The woman shown in the posts, however, is an activist named Sathya Chathurangani.

"I have been unduly targeted by these false posts," Chathurangani told AFP.

Her photo was earlier posted here on Facebook on May 13, 2022 by Ruwan Gunaratne, who regularly shares images of protests in Sri Lanka.

The photo was uploaded in an album titled, "Aragalaya 2022 GotaGoGama May 13".

Gunaratne told AFP Chathurangani is "an activist who actively participated in the GotaGoGama protests".

"She has been unfairly targeted and tainted by these false claims. She is not the mother of the abandoned infant," Gunaratne said.

Gunaratne also addressed the false posts in a statement on Facebook on March 12, 2023.

He wrote in part: "I want to very strongly condemn the attempt to sling mud at Chathurangani in particular and aragalaya (protesters) in general using (without permission) a photo of mine from 13th May last year."

Local media reports here, here and here say the young parents of the baby had been arrested but later ordered released after they expressed willingness to legally get married and seek full custody of the child.

None of the reports described the mother as an activist who participated in the GotaGoGama protests.

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