Republic TV Shares Old, Unrelated Image Linking to Manipur Violence

One of the images used in the debate bulletin dated back to 2007 and had no connection to Manipur.

Fact-Check | The visual is old and unrelated to Manipur or India.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

On 3 September, Editor-in-chief of Republic TV Arnab Goswami hosted a debate talking about a drone attack in Manipur and alleged foreign involvement in the same.

What did Goswami say?: Using multiple images, Goswami said, "Ladies and gentlemen, look at these pictures. This picture is of the ITLF drone squad. They issued a press release against me today. This was recovered in the month of October 2023. A drone was seized by the Manipur police and from the memory card, this footage was recovered. This establishes that they are running a drone squad. This was submitted to the court by some parties during the hearing on Manipur violence..."

The problem with the claim: The second image used in the debate bulletin had no connection to India, let alone Manipur.

• It could be traced back to 2007 and showed eight Qassam launchers.

• These Qassam launchers are artillery rockets developed by the military arm of Hamas.

How did we find that out?: Using Google Lens, we conducted a reverse image search and found the same image published on Wikimedia Commons.

• As per the details available, the image was captured on 6 July 2007.

• Its description said, "Eight Qassam launchers, seven equipped with operating systems and one armed and ready to launch."

The image was titled, "File:Flickr - Israel Defense Forces - Eight Qassam Launchers in Gaza.jpg."

(Source: Wikimedia Commons/Screenshot)

Comparing visuals: Team WebQoof further compared the visual available on Republic TV to the one uploaded on Wikimedia Commons and found both of them are the same.

A comparison clearly highlights the similarities.

(Source: Wikimedia Commons/Screenshot/Altered by The Quint)

News reports carrying the same image: A report published in France24 had used the same image while talking about "Palestinian militants" firing rockets into Israel.

• We found more media reports that carried the same image, which established the fact that the image had been used as a representational one over the years.

• You can view these reports here and here.

The report was published in January 2009.

(Source: France24/Screenshot)

Conclusion: It is clear that the image is old and is unrelated to Manipur or India.

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