This picture has been doctored to add a photo of Indira Gandhi
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on August 12, 2021 at 06:13
- 2 min read
- By AFP India
Copyright © AFP 2017-2024. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
"These Congressmen are going to bow down to Harmandir Sahib. What message are they giving to people especially Sikhs by taking this photo?" reads a Punjabi-language Facebook post from July 21.
Harminder Sahib, also called the Golden Temple, is the most sacred place of worship for the Sikh religious community, located in northwestern India's Punjab state.
The picture appears to show Sikh politician Navjot Singh Sidhu holding a framed photo of former prime minister Indira Gandhi at a rally.
Gandhi was killed by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984 after ordering Indian troops to storm the Golden Temple in an operation was to flush out separatists from the minority faith holed up inside.
The same image was shared on Facebook here, here and here.
However, the image has been doctored.
Reverse image and keyword searches found the same picture -- but showing Sidhi holding up a different picture -- posted on Twitter on July 20. In the original photo, Sidhu is shown holding a photo of the Indian revolutionary hero Bhagat Singh, not Indira Gandhi.
Below is a screenshot comparison between the doctored image (L) and the original photo uploaded on Twitter (R):
A further reverse image search on TinEye found a similar photo to the one posted on Twitter published here by Getty Images on July 18.
The Getty Images photo is captioned: "Newly appointed Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president Navjot Singh Siddhu being welcomed by party workers during his visit at Golden Gate, on July 18, 2021 in Amritsar, India."
The rally was covered in various media reports, including here, here and here, which make no mention of Siddhu displaying a picture of Indira Gandhi.
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
