Photo of religious procession misrepresented as rally against arrest of opposition leader in India
- Published on April 10, 2024 at 04:13
- Updated on April 10, 2024 at 05:23
- 4 min read
- By Sachin BAGHEL, AFP India
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"This picture tells the end of the dictator is certain... people are on the streets against Kejriwal's arrest. Chennai," reads the Hindi-language caption of a post shared on social media platform X on March 23, 2024.
The picture appeared on social media posts after India's main financial investigation agency, the Enforcement Directorate, arrested Kejriwal on March 21 in connection with a long-running corruption probe.
Kejriwal's government is accused of receiving kickbacks while handing out liquor licences to private companies. He has denied these charges (archived link).
Top leaders of India's opposition coalition -- of which Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party is a member -- and thousands of supporters held a rally in Delhi on March 31 to protest his arrest. On April 1, Kejriwal was sent to a 15-day judicial custody (archived link). He is currently jailed in Tihar, India's largest prison (archived link).
His supporters claimed the arrest was aimed at sidelining challengers to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the marathon six-week national elections beginning April 19.
Similar claims have been shared elsewhere on Facebook here, here and here on social media platform X.
The claim is false. The image actually shows a religious procession held in eastern Odisha state of India in June 2023.
Photo from June 2023
A reverse image search on Google found the same picture uploaded on the Times Content website, a distributor of videos and photos connected with the media group Times of India (archived links here and here).
The description with the photo reads, "Annual Lord Jagannath Rath Yatra in Puri: Crowd of devotees during the annual Rath Yatra of Lord Jagannath, in Puri, Odisha on June 20, 2023."
Below is a screenshot comparison of the image shared in false posts (left) and the picture uploaded on Times Content's website (right):
Further keyword search found the same photo shared on the official X handle of the Puri police on June 21, 2023 as well as on the official X account of Odisha's Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on June 20, 2023 ( archived links here and here).
Also known as the chariot festival, Ratha Yatra is one of India's biggest and oldest annual religious festivals, where Hindu devotees pull ornate chariots carrying deities through the streets (archived link).
AFP geolocated the avenue seen in the photo shared in false posts (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the image shared in false posts (left) and the Google Street View of the same avenue with similarities highlighted by AFP:
AFP has previously debunked similar misinformation here.
April 10, 2024 This report has been updated to correct the spelling of the opposition leader's first name in the summary
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