The person who is being flogged by British in the photo is not Bhagat Singh

A post with a photo is being shared on Facebook with a claim that the person who was being flogged by British soldiers is Bhagat Singh and the photo was published in a newspaper article. Let’s try to analyze the authenticity of the claim made in the post.

The archived version of the post can be found here.

Claim: Photo of Bhagat Singh being flogged by British soldiers.
Fact: The person in the photo is not Bhagat Singh. The photo was taken in Kasur railway station according to a book published in1920. During the period of 1919-20, Bhagat Singh was 12-years-old and he was studying at D.A.V school in Lahore. Also, according to the book released by Indian central government, Bhagat Singh did not participate in freedom movement and was not arrested by British before 1920. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.

When the photo in the post was searched using ‘Yandex’ reverse image technique, a tweet with a similar photo was found. According to the tweet, the photo in the post was taken from a book written by Benjamin Horniman in 1920. When searched for this book, it was found that the title of the book is ‘Amritsar and our duty to India’ (Archived version of the book can be read here). The photo in the post can be found on the 120th-page number of the book. ‘Another picture of an Indian tied to a ladder at Kasur railway station being flogged’ is the description that was written below the photo. In the book, there was no information about Bhagat Singh.

The post claims that the photo was published in a newspaper; however, there was no information about the newspaper name or the date the article was published. But the description below the photo indicates that Bhagat Singh is being flogged by British soldiers in jail. However, because of the information found in Benjamin Horniman’s book, it is understood that the photo was not taken in jail, but at Kasur railway station. Also, there is no information about Bhagat Singh being jailed or flogged by the British in 1920. So even if the newspaper says that the person in the photo is Bhagat Singh, the person in the photo is not him.

From the book, ’Bhagat Singh: Select Speeches And Writings’ (Archived version of the book can be found here) it is understood that when the Jalianwala Bagh incident took place in 1919, Bhagat Singh was 12-years-old and he was studying at D.A.V school, Lahore. Though it was written that Bhagat Singh collected sand from Jalianwala Bagh, there is no information about him being flogged or arrested by British soldiers. Also, in a book, ‘Dictionary of Martyrs’, released by the central government in 2019, it was written that Bhagat Singh participated in the freedom movement between 1920-22.