Fact-Check: Do These Pictures Show Recent Attacks on Jain Monks in Karnataka?

It was falsely claimed that Muslims attacked the Jain monks and asked them to raise slogans in favour of Congress.

(Trigger Warning: Disturbing visuals)

A picture of three seriously wounded people are being circulated on the internet to claim that people from the Muslim community attacked Jain monks in Karnataka.

What is the claim?: Users shared the image claiming that they are from a recent incident which happened after the Congress party won the state assembly elections.

(Note: Due to the distressing nature of visuals, we have refrained from adding any archive links.)

(We also received a WhatsApp query about the viral image.)

What is the truth?: We found that all the images are old and are being falsely shared as visuals from a recent incident.

• It should be noted that these images have been circulated several times with different contexts and were debunked by fact-checkers.

Image 1

At first, we isolated all the first image and performed a reverse image search on it.

• This led us to a post uploaded on Twitter which carried the same image.

• It was posted on 7 September 2018, and the user identified the location as Uttar Pradesh.

• While we could not independently verify the location or the context, it is clear that the image is old and not recent, as claimed.

Image 2

The Quint had published a fact-check report in 2018, which identified the location of the second image as Uttar Pradesh.

• An article published on the news website Royal Bulletin said that the man was injured during a domestic dispute with his wife in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar district.

• The website's editor confirmed to SMHoaxSlayer that the image was taken by one of their associated journalists.

• It further said that the police refused to take action.

Image 3

A Google Lens search on the third image led us to a news report published on Deccan Chronicle which carried a similar visual.

• It said mentioned that the co-founder of an online portal called Postcard News, Mahesh Vikram Hedge, was arrested for spreading fake news.

• Hedge had tweeted the image claiming that a Muslim attacked a Jain monk in Karnataka.

• The monk was identified as Upadhyaya Mayank Sagar Ji Maharaj.

• It further added that the police denied the viral claim and said that the monk met with an accident where he sustained minor injuries.

• NDTV published a similar report.

Conclusion: Several old images are being shared on the internet with users falsely claiming that several Muslims attacked Jain monks in Karnataka after Congress won the state assembly elections.

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