Fact Check: Viral picture of a woman being manhandled by cops during a protest is not from Patna but Sri Lanka
viral post has accused Bihar police of misbehaving with woman during BPSC protests in Patna while the fact is the image is from Sri Lanka protests
Claim :
Shameful conduct by the Bihar police towards a woman during the BPSC protests in PatnaFact :
Viral photo is from Sri Lanka anti-government protests in 2022, not Patna
Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) aspirants are protesting in Patna over the ‘normalisation process’ adapted for the 70th BPSC Preliminary Examination. They have been demanding the Commission to withdraw the proposed changes to the BPSC prelims which is scheduled to be held on December 13, 2024.
The police used mild force to disperse the group of aspirants protesting near the BPSC office in Patna on Friday. Even as civil aspirants continue to protest the proposed changes, two well-known educators Faizal Khan, popularly known as Khan Sir and Guru Rahman have criticized the Patna police for wielding lathis on protesters. There were also reports of Khan Sir being detained by the police. However, Dr Anu Kumari, sub-divisional police officer of Sachiwalaya, has called the claims “baseless, misleading and provocative.”
Referring to the civil aspirants’ protests, a post on X (formerly Twitter) is going viral on social media. Sharing an inappropriate photo of a woman being manhandled by the police, the user (@divyakumaari) says “It is shameful to see how the Bihar police are misbehaving with a female protester. Is this how Bihar police suppress a movement?”
You can see the claim here and the archived link here.
The screenshot of the viral claim is here.
Fact Check:
During the investigation, the Telugu Post fact check team found this claim to be misleading.
When we searched with relevant keywords on YouTube, we found several videos of police using mild force against the protesting youth in Patna near the BPSC office. However, none of the policemen were wearing helmets. News agency ANI covered the lathicharge and posted it on their channel on December 6, 2024.
As the helmets worn by the police in the viral image were not found in the search results, we used Google Reverse Image Search tool to find the original image. We found a tweet posted in 2012 showing the same viral images without any information.
As we continued our search, we found a news article on the News19 web portal from Sri Lanka. The article written in Sinhala language featured the viral image. Using Google Translate, we found that the viral photo was captured during a demonstration against Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe outside his residence on 5th Lane, Colombo on July 22, 2024.
Several photographs of Hirunika Premachandra, leader of Samagi Vanitha Balawegaya, from the demonstration went viral on social media. Some of them exposed part of her upper body while she was being confronted by the police.
Following the incident, Premachandra took to her Facebook page and wrote a strong response to the people who were sharing it on social media.
“I am proud of my breasts! I breastfed three beautiful kids. I nurtured them, comforted them and dedicated my whole body for them. I am sure people who make fun of my exposed breasts ( due to the clash with the police) also sucked their mothers nipples until its raw when they were infants.
Anyway when you are done talking, making memes and laughing about my breasts, there was ANOTHER civilian died in a queue... Just so you know!”
A private photo agency called Nur Photo agency has captured various photographs of Hirunika Premachandra’s protest against the Sri Lankan government in June 2022. These photos show that there were women police personnel in riot gear who were also deployed to stop the female protesters.
BBC has also featured the photo of Hirunika Premachandra in its week in pictures: 18-24 June 2022.
The caption reads: Hirunika Premachandra, leader of Samagi Vanitha Balawegaya, a part of the main opposition party Samagi Jana Balawegaya, hugs a female police member during a protest near the private residence of Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in Colombo, amid the country's economic crisis.
In the light of these media reports and investigations, it is clear that the photo of police personnel manhandling a female protester is not from Patna protests. The viral photo was captured during a protest against Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe government in Colombo in 2022. Hence, the claim made in the viral post is misleading.
