Photo of a religious procession in Bangladesh is falsely shared as Danish Siddiqui’s funeral - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
July 20, 2021
A photo is being widely shared through a post claiming that the photo is from Danish Siddiqui’s funeral. The post also claims that COVID-19 protocols have been mismanaged during this funeral procession. Let us fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Photo of crowd disregarding COVID-19 protocols at Danish Siddiqui’s funeral.
Fact: This photo is from a religious procession from Chittagong, Bangladesh taken in November 2019, not from Danish Siddiqui’s funeral. Danish Siddiqui was buried at a cemetery in Jamia Millia Islamia on 18 July 2021. The funeral was attended by hundreds with crowd gathered in proximity even when the police instructed people to follow social distancing norms. Danish Siddiqui was a Pulitzer Prize-winning Indian photojournalist who was killed in Afghanistan when he was working on an assignment for Reuters news agency. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When reverse image search was done on the photo, a YouTube video with similar visuals was found. This video was uploaded on 13 November 2019 with the title, ‘Celebration procession Chittagong’. Similar visuals of the procession van could be seen in this video.
Taking a cue that this video is from Chittagong, Bangladesh; we searched for videos with relevant keywords and found several YouTube videos of this religious procession in Chittagong, Bangladesh in 2019 (the videos can be seen here, here, and here). This Jashne Juluse Eid-E-Miladunnabi was observed in Chittagong, Bangladesh in 2019; according to an article, ‘the holy Eid-e-Miladunnabi is the day of birth and demise of Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (PHUH), was observed in the country with due religious solemnity.’ A Facebook post published on 15 November 2019 had a video with the same visuals as in the post.
Danish Siddiqui was a Pulitzer Prize-winning Indian photojournalist who was killed in Afghanistan when he was working on an assignment for Reuters news agency. He died due to an ambush by Taliban militants on a convoy of Afghan forces he was embedded with. Danish Siddiqui was buried at a cemetery in Jamia Millia Islamia on 18 July 2021. The funeral was attended by hundreds – former classmates, budding photojournalists, friends, and neighbours, according to a Newslaundry article. The police and Jamia Millia Islamia administration instructed people to follow social distancing norms at Danish Siddiqui’s funeral. However, a Twitter post shows crowd swelling at the funeral site.
Crowd swelling at Jamia now. Danish Siddiqui's funeral. pic.twitter.com/xuegSipwhE
To sum it up, a photo of a religious procession in Bangladesh is falsely shared as Danish Siddiqui’s funeral.