This photo of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been doctored to include a woman’s foot

This article is more than one year old.
Published on October 14, 2020 at 10:45
2 min read
By AFP Pakistan

An image purporting to show Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi resting his chin on a woman’s foot has been shared tens of thousands of times on Facebook. The image, however, has been doctored; the image has been manipulated to include the woman's foot from a photo of Modi practicing yoga in 2015.

The image was published on Facebook here on July 6, 2020. It has been shared 180,000 times.

A screenshot of the misleading Facebook post

The post’s Urdu-language caption translates to English as: “Anyone who will not share this will not be a Muslim.”

The post implies the photo is authentic and suggests other Facebook users who identify as Muslim should share the image in an effort to demean Modi.

Critics claim Modi's Hindu nationalist party has implemented anti-Muslim policies, as AFP reported here.

The same image was also shared alongside similar captions on Facebook here, here and here.

The image, however, has been doctored to include the woman’s foot.

Reverse image searches found the image was created from a photo of Modi during a yoga session he participated in to mark International Yoga Day in June 2015.

Photos of Modi practicing yoga in the same clothes seen in the doctored image were widely published by Indian media, for example here, here, here and here.

Footage of the entire session was also published on Modi’s official YouTube channel here. At no point does Modi touch a woman’s foot with his chin in the video.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the manipulated image (L) and a photo published by the International Business Times (R):

A screenshot comparison of the photo in the misleading post (L) and a similar photo of Modi published by the International Business Times (R)

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