Morphed photo from 2010 shared as Lal Chowk in Kashmir on 74th Independence day - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
August 16, 2020
A post comparing the image of Lal Chowk on which the Indian Tricolour is unfurled with that of Lal Chowk on which a green flag is unfurled is doing rounds on social media with the claim that the image with Indian Tricolour is of 74 Independence Day. Through this article let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Image showing Indian Tricolour hoisted at Srinagar’s Lal Chowk on the occasion of the 74 Independence Day.
Fact: This is a doctored image. Two separate images of Lal Chowk, Srinagar and Indian flag are digitally edited so as to look like Indian Tricolour is unfurled at Lal Chowk. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When we ran a reverse image search of the photo in the claim, we found the same photo in a blog which was published back in 2010, but in the blog, only the image of the clock tower is seen without the Indian flag. Even after 2010, the same images of clock tower without the Indian flag were published by a few news organizations which can be seen here and here. Also, we found no news reports regarding the hoisting of Indian flag on the clock tower in Lal Chowk on the occasion of the 74 Independence Day.
Also, on cropping the image and subjecting only the image of Indian flag to reverse image search we found that same image in a website called pixabay. The GIF below explains the process of digitally placing the image of the flag from pixabay onto an old image of the clock tower.
The other part of the image in the post where we can see a green flag on the clock tower is of a true incident which happened in 2010. More information regarding the incident can be read here. And few more images of the incident can be seen here and here.
To sum it up, image claiming to be that of the Indian flag which is hoisted at Lal Chowk, Srinagar on the occasion of the 74 Independence Day is actually a doctored one.
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