On 19th July 2019, a Facebook user named HINDU HAI HUM posted a picture. The title of the picture was “beware of cyber Jihad! Muslim boys are making fake IDs using Dalit, OBC and Brahmin names to post racist remarks on Facebook so that Hindus are divided and Muslims succeed in their goals of conquering India”. In this picture, it is also written, “This man has been abusing Brahmins by using a Yadav’s ID, and on the other hand he is abusing Dalits by using a Brahmins ID. In reality, his name is Mohammed Ahmed. This is a new form of Jihad. Cyber Jihad is being used to divide Hindus”.
This post claims that the person showed in the picture is Mohammed Ahmed and he was arrested by the Himachal Police for cyber jihad and also for making a fake ID on Facebook and using that ID to pass abusive comments on The Ramayana and The Gita. Further, this post also mentions the fact that he tried to spread communal hatred among peole by creating a fake ID. This picture is taking rounds on different social media platforms. This post has been shared 1000 times on Facbook till the Facts were checked.
At the beginning of the investigation, we took a screenshot of Mohammed Ahmed’s viral picture to search it on Google’s reverse image.
In the result, we got a link to a website named Github. According to this website, this picture belongs to a person named Zeeshan-ul-Hassan-Usmani who describes himself as a Data Science Blockchain and AI Consultant on his Linked-in profile.
According to Github, Zeeshan resides in California, Los Angeles. In this website, we also found the link of his official website.
We also found the Twitter and Facebook account of Zeeshan Usmani, we observed that the photo used by Facebook page ‘Hindu Hai Hum’ on their viral post was originally taken from Zeeshan’s Facebook profile picture album. We would like to mention that the person shown in the viral picture is not Mohammed Ahmed but Zeeshan Ul- Hassan Usmani and he has no connection with the incident described in the viral post.
After checking his Twitter account, we found that the most recent tweet made by Zeeshan was on 22nd July 2019 at 04:03 AM and his tweet mentioned, “With Chandrayaan-2 launch, India’s ISRO shoots for the Moon on a shoe-string budget”.
The facts obtained through our investigation makes it clear that the viral claim of him being arrested in India is baseless and he is still in the United States.
Apart from this, we contacted Himachal Police Cyber Crime Cell regarding claims made for the arrest of Mohammed Ahmed. They told us that they do not have any such evidence or news that would prove the authenticity of this news.
After this we talked to Himachal Pradesh Cyber Crime SP, Mr. Sandeep Kumar Dhawal, he told us “no such incident has recently taken place in Himachal Pradesh; I can also confirm that such incident did not take place in the previous year as well”. He clearly denied the viral claims on social media by clearly saying that he did not arrest anybody by the name of Mohammad Ahmed recently on the grounds of Cyber Jihad. The viral posts has no relation with Himachal Pradesh.
We searched for the arrest of Mohammed Ahmed on Twitter Advanced search. As a result, we received a press note tweeted by the official twitter account of Hamirpur Police on 27th September 2017.
The press note mentions that a man named Mohammed Ahmed was arrested in Hamirpur, Uttar Pradesh for creating a fake ID on Facebook by using pictures of former ABVP district in-charge and vice-president of Hindu Yuva Vahini Sundaram Singh. Mohammed Ahmed used fake ID to post objectionable and obscene content. He also made derogatory remarks on The Ramayana and The Gita to spark a communal riot. The title of this tweet mentions that “Hamirpur: An accused arrested for making a fake ID on Facebook”.
There was an image attached along with the press note in this tweet that shows the arrest of the real Mohammed Ahmed. The man in this photo does not match with the picture of the person used in the post claim.
It is notable that according to the claim made in the post, Mohammed Ahmed was arrested Hamirpur Police of Uttar Pradesh in 2017 and not from Himachal Pradesh.
Below you can see the comparison of the picture of the person who appeared to be the original Mohammed Ahmed and the person alleged in the viral photograph.
Conclusion: After investigating the facts, Fact Crescendo has found the above post to be incorrect, the photograph of Zeeshan Usmani was made viral in the name of Mohammed Ahmed with the wrong claims. The incident took place in Uttar Pradesh but several social media users have used an image sourced from a random Facebook profile (Zeeshan Usmani’s) and claimed that the incident occurred in Himachal Pradesh.We categorise the story as FALSE.
Title:The old profile picture of a Facebook user named Zeeshan Usmani made viral to mislead people.
Fact Check By: Ruchika MResult: False
