After the wrestlers’ protest took a violent turn on May 29, 2023, and several wrestlers were detained by Delhi Police, a picture surfaced on social media showing wrestlers Sangeeta Phogat and Vinesh Phogat smiling after they were detained.
One of the social media users wrote: “These so-called Indian wrestlers tried to enter the new Parliament building by force and broke the rules to disrupt the opening ceremony of the House.
The moment they were detained by the police and dumped in police van, these wrestlers happily started taking selfies of each other…….!!!
Shame on these #ToolGateWrestlers and equally shame on #ToolGateWeekly #IndiaToday for putting up the news ‘they did not take selfies with smiles on their face!”
The above post can be seen here.
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the above picture, and found it to be morphed.
Putting the above picture through Reverse Image Search, we came across a tweet by Bajrang Punia, dated May 28, 2023, stating that the picture in question is FAKE. The original picture posted by him shows that detained wrestlers are, in fact, NOT smiling.
IT Cell वाले ये झूठी तस्वीर फैला रहे हैं। हम ये साफ़ कर देते हैं की जो भी ये फ़र्ज़ी तस्वीर पोस्ट करेगा उसके ख़िलाफ़ शिकायत दर्ज की जाएगी। #WrestlersProtest pic.twitter.com/a0MngT1kUa
— Bajrang Punia 🇮🇳 (@BajrangPunia) May 28, 2023
We also discovered that the picture was morphed by using an AI smartphone app — FaceApp — to conveniently ‘put smiles’ on the faces of the wrestlers and leave the cops present in the selfie.
NewsMobile brings to you how it was done:
FINAL OUTCOME
So, the above discoveries prove that the picture in question is morphed.
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