Old Images Of Youths Dying By Suicides Falsely Circulated In Context Of Agnipath Scheme

The Agnipath scheme introduced by the government has led to huge protests across several states in India. Alongwith the controversy that has erupted following the introduction of the scheme, there has been a rapid rise of misinformation circulating across social media.

The Logical Indian Fact Check Team investigated viral posts which claimed that a newspaper clipping talked about a person committing suicide due to the Apnipath scheme launched by the government. We found that the viral image has been available on the internet since April 2022 and was falsely linked with the Angniveer scheme, as per our report.

Claim:

Several Twitter users have circulated a collage of images showing persons hanging, depicting them as youths who ended their lives. The caption of these viral posts reads "#Agniveer SHAME ON GOVERNMENT" indicating that these alleged incidents of suicide took place in the aftermath of the Agnipath scheme. The viral posts allege that the men shown in these pictures have committed suicide following the announcement of the Agnipath scheme.

We came across similar claims which demanded the resignation of PM Modi, alleging that youths were committing suicide following the introduction of the Agnipath scheme.

Posts also went viral with captions such as, "Today youths who have committed suicide out of despair and despair due to Agneepath scheme. But in fact, it is not a suicide but a murder, and the BJP government is responsible for their death."

Fact Check:

The Logical Indian fact check team verified the viral claim and found it to be false. The viral images are not related to the Agniveer scheme.

We checked each image in the collage one by one to verify whether it took place in the context of the Agniveer scheme or not.

Image 1:

We conducted a reverse image search on the portion of the collage featuring the image of the person wearing a maroon tee. Following the reverse image search, we came across the following image on Facebook.

The Facebook post was uploaded by the page Today Darpan on March 20, 2020. The caption stated that the person in the image was Sunil Kumar aged 32 who hung himself. The person was a resident of Ludana village in Haryana.

The caption stated that the father of the deceased, Vijay Kumar had accused Sunil's wife Seema, father-in-law Jagdish and brother-in-law Vikram of torturing his son for the last three years. Troubled by the actions of his in-laws, his son committed suicide, the father said as per the post.

Image 2:

We conducted a reverse image search on the second image in the upper left corner of the collage. The image shows a person hanging from a van with people gathered around the body.

The reverse image search led us to more Twitter posts that featured the image in better quality. The following Twitter post was uploaded by Twitter user @Kapiljatkp2. The image carried a similar claim that the person had committed suicide due to the aftermath of the Agniveer scheme.

The reverse image search from the image on this Twitter post led us to an AmarUjala report published on 20 June 2018. This report stated how a couple committed suicide at a hotel in Kurukshetra, Haryana. The AmarUjala report identifies the deceased as 24-year-old Jagatpal, a resident of Fatehabad in Haryana. The report remarked that the couple had committed suicide together and had left an 8-page suicide note.

Image 3:

We conducted another reverse image search on the image located in the collage in the upper left corner of the collage. We came across posts on Twitter that showed the image in better quality.

The following image was posted by the user @JeetFixWriter who alleged that the person depicted in the image committed suicide in the aftermath of the Agnipath scheme. At the bottom of the image is a caption indicating a report by a website, Aajtak24.

We conducted a keyword search with the keywords seen at the bottom of the image. This led us to a report on the website Aajtak24 published on November 21, 2019. The report identified the hanging person as 25-year-old Babbu, from Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh. The Aajtak24 report stated that Babbu was in a love affair with a girl from a tribal community, while he had married himself and had three children.

Image 4:

For the fourth image in the collage, we came across posts on Twitter which carried clearer versions of the image.

Following this, we noticed the caption on the bottom of the viral image which led us to this report published by Dainik Jabalpur Jagran published on June 4, 2022.

As per the report, the deceased was identified as 38-year-old Rajendra Pradhan, a resident of Khaira village in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh. He is reported as having committed suicide for unknown reasons.

Image 5:

We came across Twitter posts that featured the image in better quality. The reverse image search on the image-led to this report on AIMA Media published on October 11, 2020. The report states that the dead body of a youth was found hanging from a noose in Lakhimpur Kheri of Uttar Pradesh. The youth reportedly had died under mysterious circumstances.

Images 6 and 7:

Images 6 and 7 show persons who have committed suicide. Image 6 shows a person hanging from an overbridge in a railway station. Image 7 shows a person hanging from what appears to be a tree branch surrounded by police officers.

Despite repeated attempts, however, we couldn't trace the images to any credible result. This is due to the poor quality of the images and the lack of results.

Image 8:

An image with two bodies covered in preparations for a cremation lay on the ground surrounded alongwith several people in distress. An old man can be seen touching the bodies while wailing women surround the bodies.

On conducting a reverse image search, we came across several results for the image. One of the results led us to a blog by user Riaz Haq published on April 22, 2015.

We also came across a report by PermaCulture News published on January 26, 2010. These report contained the same image as well. PermaCulture News' report detailed the farmer suicides that occurred across several states of the country due to crop failures and indebtedness.

The earliest reference to this image was found in a bio published on Google Site. The site was titled, "My journey through Two India's (July – August 2007)". As the author states, Channel 2 or PBS TV covered the farmer suicides in the Vidarbha region in Maharashtra in 2007.

Conclusion:

In our investigation, we found out that several of the images in the collage depict incidents that occurred at different times. While we weren't able to ascertain the origin of all the images, a majority of the images are not from the fallout of the Agnipath scheme.

The images date back as far as 2007. While some images are recent, they do not depict any incidents of suicides in the aftermath of the Agnipath scheme.

We can conclude that the collage of images has been shared in a misleading manner to spread misinformation regarding the Agnipath scheme across social media.

If you have any news that you believe needs to be fact-checked, please email us at factcheck@thelogicalindian.com or WhatsApp at 6364000343.

Also Read: Old Newsclip Of Army Aspirant Committing Suicide Revived Falsely Linking It To Agniveer Scheme