2010 photo from West Bengal shared as the picture of an innocent tribal woman killed in Chhattisgarh - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
April 5, 2022
A photo is being shared on social media claiming it as a recent picture of an innocent tribal woman who was brutally killed in the name of Naxalite in Chhattisgarh. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Picture of a tribal woman who was brutally killed in the name of a Naxalite in Chhattisgarh.
Fact: The photo shared in the post shows an old picture of a suspected female Maoist guerrilla killed during an encounter between Indian Paramilitary soldiers and the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) at Salboni village in West Bengal’s Midnapore district. This incident took place in June 2010. The photo shared in the post is old and has nothing to do with the tribals living in Chhattisgarh. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On reverse image search of the photo shared in the post, the same photo was found published on the Getty image sharing website on 16 June 2010. The description of the photo states, “Indian paramilitary soldiers carry the dead body of a suspected female Maoist guerrilla at Salboni, some 140 kms west of Kolkata, on June 16, 2010, following a gun battle with Indian security forces in Ranjha forest, close to the Maoist stronghold of Lalgarh”. It is mentioned that three women among eight Maoist guerrillas were killed during a gunfight with Indian security forces in West Bengal. This photo was credited to the ‘AFP’ news website.
When we searched for further details using these keywords, we found several news articles reporting this encounter between Indian Security forces and People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) Maoists at Salboni village in West Bengal’s Midnapore district. They can be seen here, here, and here. From all these pieces of evidence, it can be concluded that the image shared in the post shows an old picture of a woman who was killed during an encounter in West Bengal, not from Chhattisgarh.
To sum it up, an old photo from West Bengal is shared as the picture of an innocent tribal woman killed in Chhattisgarh alleging her to be a Naxalite.