Photo of family’s suicide in Rajasthan in 2017 viral as Hindus murdered in Pakistan

Twitter user Aqib Mir who claims to be a “BJP worker” on his bio shared a photograph of a family of four hung from a pipe inside a tin shed. “Pakistan is killing Hindus. Look at this pic Pakistan killed Shoe Maker Hindu,” he wrote.

A parody account of Republic TV anchor Arnab Goswami tweeted the image and claimed, “A Pakistani Maulvi Gaji Safdar beat a Pakistani Shoe Maker Hindu, for touching his Water Tap. Maulvi shouted at Them…You Untouchable Low Caste. And then he thrashed him badly…after the incident The Pakistani Hindu Committed Suicide with his family.”

The same is floating on Facebook.

Viral with another claim

The same photograph has been shared in the backdrop of the coronavirus outbreak. A message claimed that the family committed suicide after the PM Modi-led government failed to gove them relief. The complete message in Hindi reads, “सरकार के राहत की पोल खोलती हुई एक हृदयविदारक घटना…क्या देश को इस हृदय विदारक घटनाओं का ज़िक्र केंद्र सरकार के किसी मंत्री या अधिकारी द्वारा अफ़सोस करते दिखी….?मोदी जी-आप ये किस तरह का नया भारत बना चुके हैं…!”

Fact-check

A simple reverse-image search leads one to multiple links of a case report on filicide-suicide, a category of homicide-suicide where the victims are children and the perpetrators are parents.

The report has been authored by a team from the Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, All India Institute of Medical (AIIMS). It was published last year in October. According to the report, four members of a family — father, mother and two children — were found hanging dead from an iron pipe on the roof of their hut. Investigating officers found no evidence of struggle however a poisonous substance was received from the scene. Clothes of the dead children had stains of vomit. A forensic analysis of the dead bodies also hinted at suicide. The family was survived by a child aged 11 who rushed to a nearby temple when he found the dead bodies. “Police interrogate the only surviving child, priest and other caretakers of the temple and revealed that the couple was under immense mental stress over the preceding few days because of their inability to pay debts, which possibly led them to take such an extreme step,” the report said.

One of the co-authors Navneet Ateriya told Boomlive that the incident had occurred in Jodhpur’s Bhakri village in August 2017.

The case was reported by several media outlets including Dainik Jagran, Aaj Tak and Patrika. According to the reports, the family used to stay in a house on a farm in Bhakri village, Tanwara. They were indebted with a financial crisis. During the investigation, the police found that the family did not have food in the house. The deceased were identified as Kanaram (45), his wife Pushpa Devi (40) and their two children. Pushpa Devi and her daughter used to frequently fall sick and the family did not have money for their treatment. They are survived by the only child who was not murdered.

Patrika includes a video report on the incident where the surviving child gives a statement. He said that his parents got a rope at night and when he asked about it, his mother started to cry and his father chided him away. At 3 am in the morning, he found out that his entire family was dead.

Therefore, a photograph of a 2017 incident from Rajasthan’s Jodhpur is viral with the false claim that it shows Hindus murdered in Pakistan.