This photo has circulated since 2015 in reports about a burqa-clad militant arrested in Kashmir
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on January 29, 2020 at 08:15
- Updated on March 2, 2020 at 12:40
- 3 min read
- By AFP India
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The photo was published here on Facebook on January 21, 2020.
Below is a screenshot of the misleading post:
The post’s Hindi-language caption translates to English as: “In Shaheen Bagh, a man wearing a woman attire is attending the protests, as Biryani and Rs 500 is at stake.”
Shaheen Bagh is an area in India’s capital, Delhi, where hundreds of women have staged a sit-in protest the last four weeks following the passing of the Citizenship Amendment Act. The law, which grants citizenship to non-Muslim immigrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, has been criticised as anti-Muslim and sparked nationwide protests, as reported by AFP here.
Biryani is a mixed rice dish popular in South Asia, believed to have originated from Muslims in India, as reported in this news article by Indian TV channel News18.
Rs 500 is 500 Indian Rupees, and a reference to comments by Amit Malviya, head of social media for India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party, who claimed in this tweet that protesters at Shaheen Bagh were being paid 500 rupees a day to participate in the anti-citizenship law protests. He currently faces a defamation suit, filed by protesters, as reported by local news outlet Firstpost here.
The same photo was also published here, here and here on Facebook, and here and here on Twitter with a similar claim.
The claim is false; this photo has circulated online since at least 2015 in media reports about a burqa-clad militant arrested in Kashmir, a disputed territory in north India.
A Google reverse image search found this report published by Indian news channel NDTV’s website on October 16, 2015.
The headline reads: “2 injured after burqa-clad terrorist opens fire in Kashmir”.
Below is a screenshot of the NDTV report:
The report reads, in part: “Srinagar: Two people were injured on Friday after a burqa-clad gunman opened indiscriminate fire in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district, police said.
“The burqa-clad attacker has been arrested, police said.”
Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo in the misleading post (L) and the photo in the NDTV report (R):
English-language Indian news magazine Outlook also published a photo of the militant without the burqa here.
Below is a screenshot of the PTI photo:
The photo caption reads: “**COMBO** Militant Tariq Ahmad who was arrested after he attacked on Special Operation Group (SoG) of J&K Police at a Police station in Pulwama district of South Kashmir.”
The photo has been credited to the Indian news agency Press Trust of India.
The arrest of this burqa-clad militant in Kashmir was also reported by other local media here and here in October 2015.
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