Punjab police have not released photo of fugitive Amritpal Singh with long hair

Amid the hunt for Waris Punjab De leader and Khalistan sympathiser Amritpal Singh Sandhu, the Punjab police released several photos of Amritpal in various disguises. Social media users are sharing a photo of the pro-Khalistan leader disguised as a woman with long hair. It has gone viral on the internet with the claim that it is one of the photos released by the police.

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Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the Punjab police did not release the viral photo of Amritpal Singh with long hair. The viral photo is morphed.

We ran a keyword search and found seven photos of Amritpal Singh tweeted by the news agency ANI. Quoting Punjab IGP Sukhchain Singh Gill, the news agency said the Punjab police had released these photos to seek public help in their effort to arrest Singh.

We found three viral pictures—two mirror selfies and one with a yellow turban—included in the set of seven photos tweeted by ANI.

We noticed that the viral photo of Singh with long hair has the logo of FaceApp. Next, we searched for FaceApp and found that it is a photo and video editing app that can generate highly realistic transformations of human faces using Artificial Intelligence. It confirmed that the viral photo with long hair has been created with FaceApp using one of Singh’s photos released by the Punjab police.

Here is a comparison of the viral photo generated by FaceApp and the original photo

Hence, we conclude that the viral photo has been digitally created to mislead people.