A set of images showing the aftermath of a blast and injured security personnel has been shared with a claim that it is related to the recent Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast by Maoists at in Chhattisgarh's Kanker district.
The claim states that three Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) jawans were injured in the incident.
While Naxals did cause an IED blast on Chhattisgarh’s Kanker district on 14 January, we found that the images used in the social media posts were old ones and not related to the recent incident.
CLAIM
The viral claim started with asking people to pay their respects to the injured SSB personnel and said, "सभी देशवासी IED विस्फोट नक्सली हमले में गंभीर रूप से घायल तीन SSB जवानो के शीघ्र ठीक होने के लिए ईश्वर से प्रार्थना करें I"
[Translation: All the countrymen are requested to pray to God for the speedy recovery of three SSB jawans seriously injured in IED blast by Naxals.]
The claim then went on to give details of the incident.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We conducted a keyword search for the IED blast in Chhattisgarh's Kanker district and found news reports talking about the incident.
News agency ANI also posted a photograph of an injured person and a short clip was shared by Times Now. But none of the visuals matched the ones in the viral post.
We then conducted a reverse image search on all the images.
IMAGE 1
The first image was a collage of two images, one showing a damaged vehicle and the other one showing an injured person on a stretcher.
We found the collage in a story published by DNA on 18 November 2018. The story talked about an IED in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district in which five security personnel were injured.
A report in The Indian Express, that also had the image of the destroyed vehicle, said that the attacks took place when the officers were returning from poll duty in Bijapur.
IMAGE 2
The second image was also a collage of two images. When we conducted a reverse image search, we came accross a report published in india.com on 13 January 2021.
The news talked about an IED blast in Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur district that left two Chhattisgarh Armed Force (CAF) personnel injured. The images were also tweeted by news agency ANI on 12 January 2021.
IMAGE 3
The third image was nine years old from Odisha's Koraput district. The photograph, which was available on Associated Press (AP) images said that the photo was from an attack by Maoists on 27 August 2013, in which five people were killed.
IMAGE 4
The fourth image showing a blast was found on a meme website called imgur where it said that the screenshots were from a Star Wars movie called 'The Return of the Jedi'.
IMAGE 5
The fourth image showing some security personnel around a tractor was also an old image from 2016.
The image was posted by several news organisations, such as India Today and The Indian Express. According to the IE, several maoists were killed by the CRPF in Chhattisgarh's Sukma in March 2016.
IMAGE 6
The sixth image was also an old one from 2018 when Maoists attacked security personnel with a landmine blast using an IED, killing seven. The image was tweeted by ANI and was also carried in news reports.
According a report in NDTV, "Among the seven dead, three were from the Chhattisgarh Armed Force and two from the district police force."
IMAGE 7
The final image was from Chhattisgarh's Kanker district, but like all the other images, this one too was old and not related to the recent incident.
We found the same image in a Times of India story, published on 11 November 2018.
According to the report, Maoists had killed a BSF jawan in an IED blast ahead of the Chhattisgarh assembly elections.
Evidently, old and unrelated images of attacks on security personnel were falsely linked to a recent incident that took place in Chhattisgarh's Kanker district.
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