Edited Image Used to Show Lord Krishna's Photo on Russian Train

The photo shows a Melbourne Metro train and was altered to include Lord Krishna's imagery.

A photograph of a train showing artwork of Hindu God Lord Krishna is being shared on social media with the users claiming that it is a train in Russia that bears the image of Lord Krishna.

It further says that the pictures were put up by the devotees of International Society of Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), who did so to spread awareness about Lord Krishna.

However, the artwork has been added on to the image. The original image shows an X'Trapolis train from Melbourne, Australia. Many photographs shared by the Metro Trains' verified social media accounts closely resemble the photo from the claim and none of them carry any religious artwork.

CLAIM

The photograph is being shared with Hindi text, which translates to:

"This is a Russian train that is painted with artwork depicting Lord Krishna, as ISKCON devotees wanted to do it to spread awareness across the world about him."

Some versions of the claim go on to say what it would be like if it happened in India, whereas some others said that there would be a furore in the Parliament over the artwork's secularity.

The same image was shared with the same claim in 2019 and 2020 as well.

Archived versions of posts with the same claim can be seen here, here, and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We ran a reverse image search on the photo on Yandex, which led us to a forum called 'Big Footy'. Here, a user shared a similar photo to the one in the claim, noting that "xtraps are probably the best trains in Melbourne".

The side of this train was blank and didn't carry any design or artwork.

We also found the same photo on American portal Mass Transit Mag, documenting public transit across the world, and noted similarities between this image and the one in the claim.

Both trains have the same design in the front and have a small medical icon just above the door.

The portal noted that the trains, called X'Trapolis, would be provided to the Melbourne Metropolitan Rail Network in Australia by a company called Alstom.

Taking a cue from this, we looked up the metro line's website and social media platforms. On their verified Facebook and Twitter accounts, Metro Trains Melbourne shared more photos of different X'Trapolis trains.

None of these trains had any additional imagery on them.

(Note: Swipe right to view all four photos)

We then looked up reports of trains with Hindu religious symbols on trains in both Russia and Australia, but did not find any.

Clearly, an edited photo of a train was shared to claim that trains in Russia had artwork depicting Lord Krishna on them.

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