A social media post accompanying an image of Lord Krishna on a train is being widely circulated with a claim that ISKCON has painted Lord Krishna on the engine of a train in Russia so that people all over the world can know about Lord Krishna. Through this article, let’s fact-check the veracity of the photo and the claim made in the viral post.
Claim: Image of Lord Krishna on a Russian train, painted by ISKCON.
Fact: The image of the train is actually from Australia. The same image of the train is found on Southern States Group (SSG) website, an Australia based transportation company. It is also available on the company’s Facebook page. However, these images on the website and the Facebook page do not show any painting of Lord Krishna on the train. Further, there are no reports of SSG painting Lord Krishna on their trains. Also, there are no reports of Krishna paintings on trains in Russia. This establishes that the viral image is digitally edited to show Lord Krishna image on a train. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
The image of the train shared in the viral post is from Australia, not Russia. Further, the original image of the train does not contain any painting of Lord Krishna as claimed in the post.
Reverse image search of the photo in the post led us to a YouTube video that carried visuals of a train similar to the one in the viral post.
Taking a cue from this, further search led us to the same image of the train on Southern States Group (SSG) website, an Australia-based company that offers services related to transportation. Further, the same image is also available on the company’s Facebook page. However, these images on the website and the Facebook page do not show any paintings of Lord Krishna on the train.
On comparing these images with that of the viral image, it is evident that either of these could be the source of the viral image. And the image of Lord Krishna is digitally added.
Melbourne’s Public Transport Gallery YouTube channel shares multiple videos of the city’s public transportation. On this channel, there are videos of metro trains similar to the one in the viral post. However, none of the videos show trains with images of Lord Krishna.
Further, we could not find any reports of ISKCON painting Lord Krishna on Melbourne or Russian trains. All these establish that the viral image is digitally edited to show Lord Krishna’s image on a train.
To sum it up, a digitally edited image of Lord Krishna on a train is passed off linking it to ISKCON in Russian.
