Photo of Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh Shared as 'Illegal Migrants' in Assam

The photo is from 2017 and shows Rohingya Muslims who fled Myanmar and took refuge in Bangladesh.

The claim states that the photo shows illegal migrants in Assam.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A photo is being shared on social media claiming to show "illegal migrants" in Assam with a quote attributed to home minister Amit Shah that said that India must get rid of these people as they pose a threat to the nation.

However, we found that the photo is from 2017 and shows stranded Rohingya Muslims who fled violence and persecution in Myanmar and sought refuge in Bangladesh.

The quote used in the tweet can be traced back to 2018 when Shah said those lines while during the 2018 Rajasthan elections campaign.

CLAIM

The photo shared by BJP leader and former North Delhi mayor Ravinder Gupta is shared to insinuate that the photo is from Assam.

The hashtag used in the photo reads, "Free Assam from illegal migrants".

An archive of the tweet can be found here. 

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

Social media users shared the photo on Twitter and the archived links can be seen here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND

We conducted a reverse image search on the photo and found in a photo story by Outlook.

Photo from 2017 in Palong Khali, Bangladesh. 

(Source: Outlook/Screenshot)

The photo attribution was given to Associated Press (AP) and we looked into the archives and found it there published in 2017.

The caption read, "Newly arrived Rohingya Muslims, who crossed over from Myanmar into Bangladesh, rest on an embankment after spending a night in the open as they have been prevented from moving ahead towards refugee camps by Bangladesh border guard soldiers at Palong Khali, Bangladesh, Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2017."

Photo taken on 17 October 2017. 

(Photo: AP/Screenshot/Altered by The Quint)

Further, the quote in the caption is now Home Minister Amit Shah's statement from 2018 in Rajasthan. He made the statement while addressing a gathering of Other Backward Class (OBC) Sammelan in Pali, Rajasthan.

The lines can be heard from 35:08-35:40 minutes.

Clearly, an unrelated photo is being shared on social media with the false claim that it shows illegal migrants in Assam.

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