CLAIM
(WARNING: GRAPHIC)
In a gruesome incident, a youth, identified as Vishnu Kumar Goswami, was set ablaze in Uttar Pradesh’s Gonda village on 14 May by four Muslim men after an altercation.
Many people have shared this news on social media with a set of three pictures, one shows a person on fire, another shows a man with severe burns while the last photo shows the police along with the accused.
BJP Yuva Morcha’s national general secretary Abhijat Mishra also tweeted about this:
The tweet read, “ उत्तर प्रदेश के गोंडा में एक हिन्दू युवा #विष्णुगोस्वामी को चार शांतिदूतों इमरान-रमज़ान-निज़ामुद्दीन-तुफैल ने
पहले पेट्रोल से नहलाया फिर आग लगा दी
हालांकि चारों जिहादी गिरफ्तार हैं
पर #मॉब_लिंचिंग चिल्लाने वाला गैंग कहाँ है”
(Translation: One Hindu youth Vishnu Goswami was doused in petrol by four miscreants, Imran-Ramzan-Nizamuddin-Tufail, and then set on fire in Uttar Pradesh’s Gonda. The four jihadis have been arrested, but where are the people who shout ‘mob lynching’?)
These tweets give it a communal angle.
In addition to this, the same image was carried by MNS News on its website.
This news was also shared by various users on Facebook.
TRUE OR FALSE?
The image that graphically shows a man burning is not related to the incident that took place in Gonda, UP. On conducting searches about the image, the oldest occurrence of it could be found in 2013.
Additionally, the incident that has been coloured as “communal” by the captions accompanying the pictures on social media, did not have any such angle to it.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
On conducting a reverse image search for the image of the man burning, we were led to a YouTube video from 2013. (Viewer Discretion Advised)
The image is a screenshot of the video. But, the location where the video was shot could not be determined.
The Gonda Police also posted a warning on their Twitter handle about the misleading picture.
The source of the second image, that of a man with severe burns, could not be verified. However, the third image of the police with the accused is indeed from Gonda.
(Translation of tweet: Police has arrested all four accused involved in setting ablaze a man in merely 2 hours. The tanker has also been taken into custody.)
The communal twist with which the story is being shared also does not seem to hold true. According to the police, Vishnu Kumar Goswami had a scuffle with his father when four men intervened to stop them. In this process, Goswami also beat these men. They did not take this well and doused Goswami with petrol and set him ablaze.
Goswami was rushed to a hospital after that.
But it is crucial to note that there was no communal angle to this incident.
(This story was first debunked by Boom)
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