2018 Photo Revived as Deceased Farmer Amid Protests in Delhi

We found that the image was also posted back in 2018, much before the farmers’ Delhi Chalo protests started.

Fact-Check of Farmers’ Protest | The photograph of a deceased elderly man is being shared with a false claim that it shows the recent death of a farmer during the ongoing protests in Delhi.

(Photo: The Quint)

The photograph of a deceased elderly man is being shared with a claim that it shows the recent death of a farmer during the ongoing protests in Delhi over the new farm laws.

However, we found that the image has been on the internet from at least 2018, much before the farmers’ Delhi Chalo protests started.

CLAIM

The photo is viral with a Hindi caption that reads, “दुखी मन से बता रहा हूं। दिल्ली किसान मोर्चे में एक और किसान भाई शहीद हो गए , उनके इस शहादत को मै कोटि कोटि नमन करता हूँ।”

[Translation: I have to say this with a heavy heart. Another farmer brother has been martyred in the Delhi farmers’ protests, I pay my respects to his martyrdom.]

The image was massively viral on both Facebook and Twitter.

An archive of the post can be found here. (Photo: Screenshot/Twitter)

An archive of the post can be found here. (Photo: Screenshot/Facebook)

A link to the search results can be found here.(Photo: Screenshot/Facebook)

An archive of the post can be found here. (Photo: Screenshot/Facebook)

An archive of the post can be found here. (Photo: Screenshot/Facebook)

Agricultural activist Ramandeep Singh Mann, who often writes about the farmers’ protests, also fell for the viral image and posted it on his Twitter handle, but later took it down. However, close to 800 people liked the image before it was taken down.

An archive of the post can be found here. (Photo: Screenshot/Twitter)

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

Upon conducting a reverse image search, we found posts on Facebook with the same image that went back to 2018.

One of the posts had a caption, which when translated from Punjabi, read, “This old man, who is about 70 years old, his dead body is lying on Bohri Chowk of Tarn Taran.[sic.] The person has not been identified.”

An archive of the post can be found here. (Photo: Screenshot/Facebook)

An archive of the post can be found here. (Photo: Screenshot/Facebook)

As per news reports, at least 25 farmers have lost their lives since 26 November when the protests began.

The Quint could not independently verify the location of the photograph or identify the elderly man in the image. However, we were able to verify that image has been present on the internet since at least 2018, much before the farmers’ protests started in Delhi.

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