Sharing a photo of an injured Jain monk, a social media post alleges that Muslims attacked a Jain monk in Karnataka. The post suggests that the photo shows the injured monk (here and here). In this article, we fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: An image of Jain monk Mayank Sagar, who was attacked and injured by Muslims in Karnataka.
Fact: This is a photo of Jain monk Mayank Sagar, who was injured in a road accident back in 2018. However, there is no religious aspect to the incident. Previously, police arrested editors of several right-wing websites for sharing this same photo, falsely alleging that the monk was injured in an attack by Muslims. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
A reverse image search of the currently viral photo led us to several news stories that published the same image in 2018. According to these reports, the person in the image is Jain monk ‘Upadhyaya Mayank Sagarji Maharaj’. These reports pertain to the arrest of the editors of two web portals for communalizing the incident (here, here & here). According to these reports from March 2018, Mayank Sagarji Maharaj was injured in an accident while returning from Shravanabela Gola in Karnataka. A collision with a two-wheeler injured his shoulder.
However, as previously mentioned, some news portals communalized the incident by reporting that the Jain monk was injured in an attack by Muslims. Consequently, the police arrested the editor of a website on charges of promoting enmity between different groups, deliberately insulting religious beliefs, and criminal conspiracy under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code.
Taking a cue from these reports, further search led us to a blog that covered the accident of Jain monk Mayank Sagarji Maharaj back in 2018. The blog, which shared the now-viral photo, clearly states that the monk was injured in a road accident. None of these reports or blogs attributed any communal angle to the incident, thereby disproving the viral claim.
To sum up, an old image of a Jain monk injured in a road accident in Karnataka is being falsely shared, alleging that he was injured in an attack by Muslims.
