New Delhi: A photograph has surfaced online, showing men purported to have been killed in police action. People are widely sharing the image, which has now gone viral, claiming it to be from the Friday morning ‘encounter’ of four men accused in the rape and murder of a veterinary doctor in Hyderabad.
The four accused men were gunned down by the Cyberabad police in the early hours of Friday when they were allegedly trying to escape.
The men were being taken to the same spot where the burnt body of the rape-murder victim was found on 28 November, to recreate the crime scene, according to the police. One of the accused allegedly snatched a weapon from one of the policemen and attacked the team. The police said they fired back in “self-defence”, killing all four.
Twitter saw mixed reactions, with some praising the police action and others condemning the extra-judicial killings. Amid all this, some of those celebrating the killings were found to be sharing the photograph of a few men lying on the ground, surrounded by the police.
A user shared the picture at 10 am Friday, saying the action was necessary. The tweet had been shared over 400 times and had received more than 1,500 likes at the time of writing this report.
This action was necessary for some people of india who always think that they can do anything with women or girls into india #Encounter pic.twitter.com/2mYoLy0yyO
— @sidhujot (@sidhujot6) December 6, 2019
Another tweet with the same picture had got over 1,000 likes when writing.
There can be no Human Rights for rapists , traitors and terrorists.?
Shame on people talking about Human Rights today.??#hyderabadpolice #Encounter#HumanRights pic.twitter.com/i27bqKY5YQ— Adarsh singh?? (@AdarshRo45) December 6, 2019
Soon, Tamil film actor Indhuja shared the same photo believing it to be of the Friday encounter, which again had been shared over 550 times and got close to 3,300 likes at the time of publishing this report.
Not only Twitter users, some news portals such as Great Andhra and Gujarat Exclusive also embeded the image with the news of the encounter.
Meanwhile, Hindi news channel Zee News also used the wrong picture in its report, claiming that the channel exclusively shared the news first, which was also uploaded on YouTube.
Fact check
The image being widely shared is from an encounter by the Andhra Pradesh Police in 2015. The slain men shown in the photo are woodcutters who were allegedly killed by the police in the Seshachalam forest of Tirumala hills for illegally cutting and smuggling sandalwood.
Twenty woodcutters from Tamil Nadu were killed by the anti-smuggling task force which was on a combing operation during April 2015.
Also read: Rose petals, praise for police & CM as Hyderabad cheers police ‘encounter’ in vet rape-murder
In collaboration with SM Hoax Slayer.