A collage of images is being shared on social media claiming it to be showing the pictures of a martyred Indian army soldier named Shakthi Singh. This post claims that Shakthi Singh was recently martyred in Kashmir 10 days after his marriage. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Pictures of an Indian army soldier who was recently martyred in Kashmir.
Fact: The pictures shared in the post show Shakti Singh Shekhawat, an Indian army soldier who died in a road accident near Rajasthan’s Chomu town in 2018. Shakti Singh died after a bus hit him on Singod Khurd to Chomu highway in November 2018. This incident took place ten days after his marriage which took place on 19 November 2018. Shakti Singh Shekhawat did not die recently while fighting terrorists in Kashmir. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
On reverse image search of the photos shared in the post, the same photos were found posted by many social media users in 2018. A few of those posts can be seen here, here, and here. These social media users mentioned these as pictures of Indian army jawan Shakti Singh Shekhawat who died 10 days after his marriage.
When we searched for further sources using relevant keywords on the internet, we found a tweet made by Rajasthan Congress leader Rukshmanii Kumari regarding the death of Indian soldier Shakti Singh Shekhawat. Rukshmanii Kumari through the tweet expressed her deep condolences for the sudden demise of jawan Shakti Singh Shekhawat, a resident of Singod Khurd village near Chomu town in the Jaipur district of Rajasthan.
On searching for further sources, we found the ‘Patrika’ newspaper clipping that reported the death of Shakti Singh Shekhawat in 2018. According to the news report, Shakti Singh Shekhawat died after a bus hit him while travelling on Singod Khurd to Chomu highway on 28 November 2018. Shakti Singh Shekhawat reportedly died 10 days after his marriage which took place on 19 November 2018. The ‘Dainik Bhaskar’ news website too reported the same in an article published in 2018.
In 2016, an Indian army jawan named Shakti Singh was martyred during a terrorist attack in the Kupwara area of Jammu and Kashmir. But the incident has nothing to do with the photos shared in the post. From all these pieces of evidence, it can be concluded that the images show Shakti Singh Shekhawat who died in 2018 in a road accident, not while fighting terrorists in Kashmir.
To sum it up, old funeral pictures of jawan Shakti Singh Shekhawat who died in a road accident in 2018 are shared with a misleading narrative.
