CLAIM
A viral Facebook post shows a collage of three gory pictures where a man is seen standing with a severed head in his hand.
The collage has been shared with the claim, "His sister was #RAPED... The next thing he did was chop off the head of the rapist and took that head to the police station..!! He is from Chennai, so proud of you bhai ❤ So proud 🙏🙏🙏"
The Quint also received a query regarding the same on its WhatsApp helpline from reader Ayush Mittal.
TRUE OR FALSE?
These pictures, while not edited in any manner, are old and have now resurfaced with a false claim.
The pictures had first emerged in September last year, and they are from Karnataka and not Chennai as claimed.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
A simple search for the words 'severed head police station' led us to several news reports on the incident dating back to 29 September.
According to The News Minute, the person in the picture is identified as one Shivaprakash Devaraja from Karnataka's Mandya.
The severed head he carried was of Girish’s, who was incidentally Shivaprakash’s "good friend."
Speaking to the news portal, local police had said that Shivaprakash chopped Girish's head off after the latter spoke ill of his mother, triggering a fight between the two.
He had then walked to the local police station to surrender.
NOT THE FIRST TIME
Again, this is not the first time this set of gory pictures have gone viral with a false claim. Only days after the incident, the pictures went viral with the false narrative that a Hindu man had beheaded a Muslim for eloping with his daughter in Tamil Nadu. Fake news buster Boom Live had then debunked this claim.
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