CLAIMA photo-collage is being shared across social media platforms with an intent to draw parallels between US police brutality on
George Floyd
and alleged atrocities on Kashmiri locals in India.
The collage uses three different images to make the claim that an Indian soldier knelt on a Kashmiri youth’s neck just like ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin asphyxiated Floyd to death by kneeling on him.
Another photo used in the collage is being claimed to be that of an
Israel
soldier kneeling on a Palestinians’s neck
Here are few Facebook users sharing the collage with hashtag #StandWithKashmir
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Twitter user Ismayil Faisal shared the collage with a text that reads, “Racism everywhere in the name of Religion,Cast,Colour, Language, Ethnicity etc etc when we will change this brutal mentality #300DaysOfKashmirSiege #georgesfloyd #protests #Kashmir #chicagoprotest sometimes I feel that Humans are the most dangerous creatures I’ve ever seen. (sic)”
TRUTHThe claim of Indian soldier kneeling on a Kashmiri’s neck is false. The photo used to make the claim is from 2011 and the person at the receiving end of the police brutality is former
Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Anand Bhadauria.
VERIFICATION AND METHODOLOGYCropping the images and running reverse-image search on them led us to their original source.
The second image was traced to a
news post dated September 20, 2016 from news site Haaretz.
Titled ‘Israeli Soldiers Photographed Beating Palestinian Face Disciplinary Action’, the post carried same image with a caption that corroborates the claim above. The photo is credited to Mussa Issa Qawasma, Reuters and the caption reads, “Israeli soldiers restrain a Palestinian in Hebron”.
The third image was traced to a
news post from Catch News dated February 14, 2017.
Titled ‘Civil war in SP: Akhilesh, his uncle, and the three aides he won't let down’, the post carries the same image which is now being shared with false claims of Indian soldier on Kashmiri’s neck.
As per the caption given to the picture, it shows former SP leader Anand Bhadauria being assaulted by then-Lucknow DIG, DK Thakur in 2011.
VERDICTTimes Fact Check has found that a 2011 image from UP is being shared with a false claim of Indian soldier kneeling on a Kashmiri’s neck. This is being done to draw false parallels between US police brutality on George Floyd and situation of Kashmiris in India.