Fact Check: Image of Kashmiri girls throwing stones is not from Congress era
Users claim that one of the images, in which the girls are seen throwing stones was during the rule of Congress, while the other. in which the girls are seen holding the national flag, is during the rule of BJP.
By Tejal Sinha Published on 21 July 2021 4:45 AM GMT
Hyderabad: A set of two images from Kashmir is viral on social media. Users claim that one of the images, in which the girls are seen throwing stones was during the rule of Congress, while the other. in which the girls are seen holding the national flag, is during the rule of BJP.
Fact Check
The claim is False.
NewsMeter performed a Google Reverse Image Search of both the viral pictures.
Picture 1: While performing the reverse image search of the first image in which the girls are seen throwing stones, we found many reports of 2017.
We found a report by India.com which was published on April 26, 2017 titled as 'PICS: Kashmir violence; girls outrage anger by pelting stones at police forces!'.
According to this report, Narendra Modi was on a Kashmir tour to discuss the rising unrest during which an uncontrollable crowd of students enraged with injustice protested on streets and even threw stones at the police force that was trying to calm them down.
The problem actually arose when a protest against police was staged at a school in Kashmir. 50 students got injured in the clash and it took miscreants no time to cash in on the anger.
We then found a report published by Navodaya Times on April 25, 2017. According to the report, there were times when stone pelters started harassing our army. Schools were closed for the last almost 5 days. As soon as the schools were opened on Monday, students started protesting again. It was seen that girls also pelted stones on the security personnel.
We also found a tweet on April 26, 2017.
Therefore, it's clear the picture was not taken during Congress rule as claimed in the viral post, but three years after BJP came into power.
Picture 2: The image is from Republic Day festivity in Kashmir. It is to be noted that the youngsters are seen wearing masks in the image which suggests that the image is after the Covid-19 pandemic broke out.
We then noticed the background and found words such as Goodwill and Dipora.
With the keyword search of Goodwill and Dipora, we found that the image is of the Army Goodwill School. The images are from Army goodwill school grounds in Kashmir's Bandipora region celebrating republic day on January 26, 2021.
We found a couple of images of the school which had the same kind of block as that of the viral image.
It is therefore evident that the claim is False. Both images were clicked during the BJP government.
