Photo of an injured cow vigilante shared as a farmer’s injured head in a lathicharge at farmers' protest - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
September 1, 2021
A post with the photo of a person with stitches on his skull is being widely shared on social media claiming that it was due to lathicharge by Modi government. The post even claims the person in the photo to be a farmer and that the incident happened during farmers’ protests. Let us fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Photo of a farmer’s head injured during a recent lathicharge at farmers’ protest.
Fact: The photo is of Tinku, who is a cow protector and the injury happened in Gurugram while he was chasing cow smugglers. The photo has nothing to do with farmers’ protest. However, on 28 August 2021, around 10 people were injured as police allegedly lathicharged a group of farmers in Karnal, Haryana. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING
When reverse image search is done on the photo, a Twitter thread with the same image was found. The tweet says that it is an old image of an injured activist named Tinku who was attacked by cow smugglers in Gurgaon on 25 August 2021 and is being falsely shared by the opposition parties. There is a video in the thread which shows the person with the stitched skull and the tweet requests strict action to be taken against people sharing such misleading posts (claims).
A Facebook post with the same image says that people fought bravely the cow smugglers and there is no mention of farmers’ protest.
The person who this shayar proudly claims to be injured in Police lathicharge is Tinku an activist who got was attacked by some cow smugglers in Gurgaon on August 25.@ShayarImran your attempt to cause panic by spreading misleading pictures will not succeed #FarmersProtest pic.twitter.com/pIv8lOx9yK
Journalists Jitender Sharma and Ashok Shrivastav have tweeted about the viral claim and said that it was false. They said that the photo is of Tinku, who is a cow protector and that the injury happened in Gurugram while he was chasing cow smugglers on the night of 24/25 August 2021.
किसानों के हक की बात तो ठीक है @ShayarImran लेकिन किसानों के नाम पर फ़र्ज़ी फ़ोटो ठीक नहीं।
ये फ़ोटो टिंकू की है जो गौ रक्षक है और ये चोट 24/25 अगस्त की रात को गौ तस्करों का पीछा करते समय गुरुग्राम में गाड़ी पलटने से लगी थी। https://t.co/P3XJlQSp8R pic.twitter.com/u1HENyYpY5
According to this article, the photo was widely shared on social media by the members of the Congress party. But they have later deleted those posts after it was known that the photo was of some Tinku and was not taken during farmers’ protest. Tinku had mailed a complaint to Cyber Cell Police Station DLF SSO.
On 25 August 2021, cow vigilantes including Tinku were following some suspected cattle smugglers in a car in Ullawas village of Gurugram. They were critically injured as part of the chase. The next day, hundreds of cow vigilantes staged a protest against cattle smugglers and demanded their arrest.
A case under relevant sections of the IPC has been registered against the accused at Sector-65 police station in Gurugram on 26 August 2021. In the FIR, there is no mention of farmers’ protest.
On 28 August 2021, around 10 people were injured as police allegedly lathicharged a group of farmers in Karnal, Haryana. The police say that only four protesters were injured while ten policemen also sustained injuries. The police reportedly resorted to lathicharge against farmers who were heading towards a BJP meeting to protest.
When Boom fact-checked a similar claim, they contacted Tinku seen in the photo. He confirmed to them that he suffered that injury on 25 August 2021 and that he would ‘file a complaint against those who have used his image with false claims’.
To sum it up, a photo of an injured cow vigilante is shared as a farmer’s injured head in a lathicharge at a farmer’s protest.