Recently an image of a terrorist with explosives tied around his body went viral on social media. Sharing the image users claimed that the terrorist had been arrested by NIA recently in Delhi. Sharing the image, a user wrote, “16 people have been arrested.
Doval ji was not roaming around aimlessly in the streets and neighbourhoods when you and I were sleeping… peacefully. National Investigation Agency (NIA) with the help of Delhi and UP police raided Seelampur in Delhi and Amroha in UP last night and arrested 16 people…*
These include an engineering student, a Maulvi of Amroha mosque, a university student, several welders and auto drivers…
In the raid, a rocket launcher was found in Seelampur, Delhi, 25 kg of explosive material, 150 phones, 300 SIM cards, 200 alarm clocks, thin iron pipes and tons of nails were found at other places… Apart from this, 18 lakh cash was also found…
Pipe bombs were being made with big welding machines, suicide vests and timer bombs were found, and auto drivers were engaged in delivering the goods…
The gang leader Mufti said that their handler was in Dubai…
If you are considering this as just a riot, then you are very naive, this is a war….!!
Be smart, be careful, be alert.”
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However, as we investigated, we came to know that the claim was misleading. The image is old and unrelated to Delhi. Here’s the fact check.
Fact Check
We started our investigation by conducting a reverse image search. This led us to a report published on 8 November 2010, which contained the viral image. The translation of the Persian headline of the report read, “A suicide bomber was arrested in Farah/Photo”.
The report read, “According to the Afghan Information Network (afghanpaper), police in Farah Province arrested a suicide bomber on Sunday.
Security officials in the province say that the individual who was planning a suicide attack was arrested from the village of Yazdi, 6 kilometres from Farah city.
It is worth noting that an explosive belt was also recovered from this person and he confessed during initial investigations that he had been transported to this village by the Taliban to carry out a suicide attack against high-ranking government officials.
Farah province is one of the relatively insecure provinces in the west of the country, where the Taliban often carry out their suicide operations.”
We found the same image in a report published in Mehr News on 6 November 2010. According to the report, the Afghan police arrested a suicide bomber on 6 November 2010 in Farah.
Another similar report can be read here.
We couldn’t find any confirmed report of any such arrest by the NIA recently.
However, we found several reports on 26 December 2018, according to which a joint team of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the Anti-terrorism Squad (ATS) of UP Police on 26 December 2018, Wednesday raided 16 locations in UP and Delhi, and nabbed five people from terror outfit ISIS near a madrassa in Amroha in Western UP.
This makes it clear that the image is old and unrelated to Delhi.
Conclusion
From our investigation, we can say that the claim is misleading. The terrorist in the image was not arrested by the NIA recently in Delhi. It’s an old image. The terrorist was arrested by the Afghan police in Farah in 2010.
Title:Old Unrelated Image Of A Terrorist In Afghanistan Going Viral As A Terrorist Arrested In Delhi.
Fact Check By: Debanjana BaishyaResult: Misleading
