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An image which shows some people bursting firecrackers and celebrating is being shared with the claim that the image is recent and the celebration happened after India lost a cricket match to Pakistan in the Asia Cup tournament.
It goes on to insinuate that the ones celebrating are from the Muslim community. This comes after the recent match between India and Pakistan in the Asia Cup 2022.
The match ended with Pakistan winning with five wickets on 4 September. This was the second time that both these teams were facing each other in the tournament, and both have won one match each.
However, we found that the photo is old and unrelated. The picture is from Hyderabad and shows people celebrating after India had beaten Pakistan in the semi-finals of the 2011 ICC World Cup. The image was originally uploaded on 30 March 2011.
The claim suggests that people burst firecrackers after India's defeat against Pakistan in the Asia Cup match. It goes on to state that if you try to question these "shantidoots" (peace mongers) – a derogatory term used to refer to the Muslim community – then they would say that they are being harassed in India.
The viral post was shared across platforms by Postcard English, an outlet that has been called out for sharing and spreading disinformation on several occasions.
An archive of a similar post can be seen here.
At first, we isolated the celebration photo from the image and performed a Google reverse image search.
This led us to a photo that was uploaded on ESPN cricinfo. The image was captioned, "Crackers go off in Hyderabad to celebrate India's victory." The website had different photos from the India vs Pakistan encounter in the semi-finals of the 2011 ICC World Cup. The date of the photo was mentioned as 30 March 2011 and the photo was attributed to AFP.
We could also find the picture uploaded on AFP Archives on 30 March 2011. The picture was taken after India beat Pakistan by 29 runs in the semi-finals of the ICC Cricket World Cup match which was held in Mohali.
Evidently, an 11-year old photo of people celebrating is being shared with a false communal claim.
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