Old Photo of Deceased Rickshaw Driver Shared as Death Due to Recent Cold Wave

This photo of the deceased rickshaw driver could be traced back to 2015.

Fact-check: The claim states that this rickshaw driver passed away due to cold weather.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

An old photograph showing a deceased rickshaw driver is being shared on social media with a claim that he died recently due to the cold weather.

• North India has witnessed one of the most severe cold waves in the last 23 years.

• The viral post has over 8,500 shares and more than 6,28,000 reactions.

An archive can be seen here.

(Source: Facebook/screenshot)

(Similar claims can be seen here and here.)

The truth: The photo could be traced back to 2015 and is unrelated to the current cold wave faced by some parts of the country.

How did we find out the truth?: We did a simple reverse image search on the viral image which led us to a Facebook post from 2015.

• The photo was posted by a user named Shubham Shekhar on 12 December 2015.

• The photo's caption stated that this picture is from Patna and shows a rickshaw puller who died due to a heart attack.

An archive can be seen here. 

(Source: Facebook/screenshot)

• Taking a cue from the post, we conducted a keyword search to look for news reports from 2015 but were unable to find any.

Conclusion: While we could not independently verify the location and the context of the image, the fact that the image has been there on the internet since 2015 shows that it is not related to the current cold wave experienced by the Northern part of India.

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