A set of two images showing a group of people serving food is being shared on social media with captions claiming that they show relief efforts by members of the religious organisation known as ISKCON.
BOOM found these claims to be false; we ascertained that the photos existed on the internet long before the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
The photo is being shared in the backdrop of Ukraine's invasion by Russia, which has generated a barrage of fake news on social media and messaging apps. As the conflict reached Ukranian capital Kyiv, ISKCON announced that it shall open the doors to its temples in Ukraine to those who need shelter.
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The photos were shared on Twitter by Radharamn Das, who is the Vice President & Spokesperson ISKCON Kolkata, as he announced the news of ISKCON temples opening up for refugees.
He shared the tweet with the caption, "ISKCON has over 54 temples in Ukraine & our devotees & temples r committed to serve those in distress. Our doors r open for service. Hare Krishna! To find nearest temples near you, please visit."
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Das announced that ISKCON temples in Ukraine shall be opening its doors to anyone who needs shelter. However, he did not specify in his tweet whether the photos were simply representation, or taken during the ongoing conflict.
Soon, we started seeing social media posts claiming that the photos shared by Das were from Ukraine, and showed recent efforts by ISCKON to carry out relief operations.
We did a search on Facebook with keywords "iskcon 54 temples", and found the same photos being shared with the caption "ISKCON serving war torn #Ukraine through their 54 temples in war hit Ukraine" by multiple users.
You can view a few such posts here, here, here and here.
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Fact Check
BOOM ran each of the photos going viral through a reverse image search, only to find multiple instances of them being shared earlier.
The first photo was found in two separate Wikipedia pages, and was uploaded on February 21, 2009.
According to the caption, the image shows members of ISKCON serve food as part of the Food For Life campaign in Russia.
We looked through the reverse image search results of the second photo, and found a link to a page that dated back to 2015. The page belonged to ISKCON Alachua Hare Krishna Temple, located in Alachua, in the state of Florida in the United States.
We looked at the page source and found that the page, had been published on August 2015. The link to the photo also indicated that it had been uploaded in 2015.
While BOOM could not independently verify the origins of both the photos, it is certain that both of them existed on the internet years before the ongoing conflict, and does not correspond to any current relief efforts by ISKCON in Ukraine.