Multiple Old Images Falsely Linked to Recent Violence in Tripura

All the photos are old and unrelated to the violence that broke out in Tripura in October.

Multiple images are being shared on social media with the claim that they show the recent violence that took place in Tripura in October.

Following an attack on Hindu minorities in Bangladesh, several right-wing organisations had taken out rallies in Tripura and had reportedly attacked mosques and properties.

However, we found that all the five photos are old and not related to the violence in Tripura. While some are from Delhi, others are from Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur and Assam's Guwahati. One of them is an old image from Tripura.

CLAIM

The photos are being shared on social media linking them to the recent violence in Tripura. They are being shared along with the hashtag #SaveTripuraMuslims.

Several Facebook and Twitter users shared the images and the archived version of the posts can be seen here, here, here, here, and here.

WHAT WE FOUND

While two images are from the fire that broke out in a refugee camp in Delhi in June, another picture is from 2017 and is related to the Saharanpur violence.

Meanwhile, the fourth photo is from September and shows clashes in Tripura, and the fifth image was taken in 2019 in Guwahati, Assam.

Let's take a look at them one by one.

IMAGE 1

We conducted a Google reverse image search on the photo and found it in an article by Al Jazeera published on 13 June.

The report read that a massive fire had erupted at a Rohingya refugee camp at Madanpur Khadar, a slum on the banks of the Yamuna river in Delhi on 13 June.

The caption of the photo read, "Firefighters douse the flames as fire rips through a Rohingya camp, reducing it to ashes in New Delhi. (sic)"

The image was credited to Al Jazeera's Meer Faisal.

IMAGE 2

As the first photo was from the fire in the Rohingya camp in Delhi, taking cue from there, we searched on Facebook with relevant keywords in Hindi.

This search led us to a post shared on 13 June that carried the viral image.

Next, we came across a photo uploaded on Getty Images pertaining to the same incident that took place in Delhi and were able to match several elements in the viral image and the one published by Getty Images.

The Quint had also covered the incident and the video was published on 14 June.

We could match several elements seen in the viral image with the ones in The Quint's ground report.

IMAGE 3

We performed a Google reverse image search on the photo and found it in an article by The Indian Express that was published on 7 May 2017, reporting about the caste violence that had taken place in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh.

The photo was credited to the daily's photographer Gajendra Yadav.

The caption of the photo read, "In one of the Dalit homes in Shabbirpur, Saharanpur. Around 22 Dalits were injured in the clash on Friday and a Thakur died, reportedly of suffocation. (sic)"

IMAGE 4

We conducted a reverse image search on the photo and this led us to an article by East Mojo that had carried the image in an article published on 8 September.

The story was about clashes between Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supporters, where over 60 people were injured and a CPI-M office was set on fire in Tripura in September.

IMAGE 5

We conducted a Google reverse image search on the photo and found it in an article by India Today published on 14 December 2019 that had carried a PTI report.

The caption along with the image that was credited to PTI read, "Protesters in Guwahati burn hoardings during their march against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill which was passed in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.(sic)"

Next, we looked for the photo in the archives of PTI and found that it was uploaded on 11 December 2019.

Clearly, old photos from incidents that took place in various parts of the country were falsely linked to the recent violence that took place in Tripura.

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