A boy’s photo is being widely shared on social media claiming him as an unknown missing child who was staying in the Ganganagar Police station for the last 45 days. This user asks people to share the child’s photo with every friend and group so that the child can meet his parents. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Photo of an unknown missing boy who is staying in the Ganganagar Police station for the last 45 days.
Fact: The same photo was being circulating on social media at least since 2015. The Sri Ganganagar district police and the then External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj have confirmed that the boy seen in the photo was not caught or taken into custody in Rajasthan’s Sri Ganganagar district. The boy in the photo went missing from his home in Pakistan’s Charsadda district on 06 June 2014. In 2015, a few social media users have shared the same photo mentioning that he was taken into custody in Makkah, Khorramdhara and other police stations. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On reverse image search of the photo shared in the post, we found that the child’s photo was being circulated on social media with a similar description at least since 2015. A few of those posts that shared this photo in 2015 can be seen here and here. All these posts shared the photo with the same description that the child is in Ganganagar police station for the past 45 days. On searching for further details using keywords on the internet, we found a similar photo of the same boy in a tweet published by a journalist named Farah Khan. Farah Khan published the photo by stating, “A 7 year old boy who went missing from Pakistan, 2 years ago was found in the Indian state of Rajasthan”.
When we searched for further sources using this information, we found the details of the boy in an article published by the Pakistan-based ‘Dawn’ news website on 29 May 2016. ‘Dawn’ article reported that a seven-year-old boy who went missing from his home in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Charsadda two years ago was found in the Indian state of Rajasthan. According to the article, Tufail Ismail went missing on 06 June 2014, while his family was shifting homes from Sardaryab to Ternab in Pakistan. Reporting the same, several Indian news websites also published articles on 30 May 2016. They can be seen here and here.
Tufail Ismail’s family reportedly came to know of his whereabouts when Tufail’s maternal uncle in Saudi Arabia saw a picture on social media shared by an Indian social worker. While believing their child is in the Sri Ganganagar district of Rajasthan, Tufail’s parents appealed to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Indian PM Narendra Modi to help bring their son home. Even Pakistan’s Awami National Party President Asfandyar Wali Khan wrote a letter to the then Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj calling for expediting legal formalities for the immediate repatriation of the child.
But the Sri Ganganagar District Police denied all these rumours of taking a missing Pakistani child into their custody. Speaking to the media on 30 May 2016, Sri Ganganagar Superintendent of Police Rahul Katakey said, “For the last eight months such rumours are doing the rounds. This boy is not in our district, not in any of our police stations”. Rahul Katakey further added, “It is just an Internet rumour doing the rounds. Social networking sites have queried about this boy. I completely deny this”. The then External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj through a tweet confirmed that the boy was not in Ganganagar.
In 2015, a few social media users have shared the same photo by mentioning that he was taken into custody in Makkah, Khorramdhara and other police stations. They can be seen here and here. The Khorramdhara Police have issued a similar clarification confirming that the child was not taken into custody in their police station. Though we could not ascertain the present details of the child, from all these pieces of evidence, it can be concluded that the boy seen in the photo was not taken into custody by the Sri Ganganagar police.
To sum it up, the child seen in the photo was not taken into custody in the Sri Ganganagar district of Rajasthan.
