New Delhi: A photograph of some students, claiming to be from the BJP’s student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in Assam, holding a banner opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act is going viral on social media.
Multiple ABVP flags are visible in the photograph and the main banner reads, “We don’t support NRC, CAB, CAA”, with ABVP Assam written on the bottom left corner. It also features pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah.
Twitter user Kamran Shahid first shared the photograph early morning on 1 January. It was then shared by Waris Pathan, former AIMIM MLA from Mumbai’s Byculla constituency, and got over 1,200 likes. He deleted the tweet later, without any clarification.
Journalist and author Saba Naqvi also shared the image Wednesday and wrote, “the world is changing”. In a following tweet, she asked that the image be verified, but by then her tweet had 766 likes and had been shared over 300 times. She deleted the tweet later.
The image, however, has spread like a wildfire on both Twitter and Facebook with several users sharing this photograph claiming that the ABVP is also rejecting the NRC and the CAA.
Fact Check
The photograph is indeed from a protest and the students are from the ABVP but the content of the banner has been doctored.
The image is actually from a pro-CAA rally held on 18 December in Ahmedabad. More than 500 people had reportedly gathered in Gandhi Maidan in support of the CAA.
The recently passed Citizenship Amendment Act has triggered nationwide protests. Hundreds of women in Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh are on a 24/7 protest against the law for more than 15 days now. Many other protests and rallies are also being held across the country, demanding that the amended law be repealed.
In collaboration with SM Hoaxslayer.
Also read: Image of blood-splattered policemen is not from citizenship law protests, it’s from 2018