Pics from Peshawar Blast? One Is from Syria, the Other Is Old Too

Two images are being shared with a claim that they are from the blast that took place in Pakistan’s Peshawar.

Two images are being shared on social media with a claim that they are from the blast that took place at a seminary in Pakistan’s Peshawar on Tuesday, 27 October.

However, these images are not related to the blast. The image which shows two pencils covered in blood could be traced back to 2018 and the other image, which shows an injured child, is from Syria.

CLAIM

Pakistan based journalist Hamid Mir shared an image showing a pen and pencil in a pool of blood with the caption, “Pen and pencils in the pool of blood #PeshawarAttack.”

(Warning: Visuals have been blurred due to their graphic nature)

Another image being shared on social media shows an injured girl which, too, is being connected to the blast that rocked Peshawar.

Both the images are being shared by multiple users on Facebook and Twitter with the same claim.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We found that both the images are old and not related to the Peshawar blast that took place on Tuesday. Let’s look at them one by one:

IMAGE 1

We reverse searched the image and found an article published on a website called ‘Documenting Reality’ in August 2018. The article mentioned that the incident is from Bangladesh’s Gazipur when a vehicle ran over a student of the Safiuddin Sarkar Academy and College.

The article carried a set of visuals, one of which is the viral image. The same incident was then reported by Dhaka Tribune as well.

While The Quint has not independently verified whether the said image is from the same Bangladesh incident, but the fact that it existed in 2018 confirms that it is not from the recent Peshawar blast.

IMAGE 2

We came across a Pinterest link that had the viral image. The image carried a logo of news agency AFP and mentioned the photographer’s name as Omar Haj Kadour.

With relevant keyword searches, we found that the same image was uploaded on Getty Images, in January, with the caption: “An injured Syrian child cries after being transported to a clinic for treatment following an air strike by pro-regime forces on the nothwestern city of Idlib on 11 January, 2020.”

AFP Photographer Omar Haj Kadour, too, had shared the image on his Instagram account on 11 January and mentioned that it shows an injured Syrian child.

Evidently, old and unrelated images are being shared on social media to falsely claim that they are from the blast that took place at a seminary in Peshawar, Pakistan.

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