An unrelated image of students at an Arabic college in Kerala has resurfaced on the internet with a false claim that it shows Kerala’s all-women police force dressed in Burqas.
CLAIM
The claim along with which the aforementioned image is being circulated reads: “चौंकिए मत यह फ़ोटो साउदी अरब का नहीं है बल्कि केरल कि महिला पुलिस का है”
[Translation: Don’t be surprised. This image is not from Saudi Arabia. This is Kerala’s women police force.]
The image is massively viral on Twitter and Facebook with the same false narrative.
WHAT WE FOUND
We ran a reverse image search on the said photograph and found a news report by The Indian Express which carried the same image.
Dated 24 October 2017, the report mentioned that the image is from an Arabic college at Uliyathaduka in Kerala.
The image made headlines in 2017 after C Shukkur, district president of the Kerala Lawyers’ Forum was criticised for sharing the image with a caption saying, “This photograph tells certain things to us. If only those who have to see get the message, it would have been good for our land. There is only one person in this picture with a face, and that is the district police chief.”
Earlier in 2017, fact-checking website BOOM reached out to the police chief in the viral photograph who said these women were taking part in a self-defense workshop called 'Nirbhaya', organised by local Vanita police or women’s police.
Clearly, an old and unrelate image of students at a college in Kerala is being shared to falsely claim that the women police force in the state wears Burqa on duty.
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