A photo showing a large and dense crowd gathered at a market place is being widely shared on social media to claim that it shows a recent instance of tourists thronging at Manali in Himachal Pradesh. The photo is being shared in the backdrop of recent reports of crowds gathering at the hillstation, while flouting social distancing norms.
BOOM found this claim to be false; while the photo is from Manali, it was taken on December 31, 2020, before India was struck by the brutal second wave of the pandemic.
The photo was shared on Twitter by Amarpreet Singh, the Managing Director of United Kingdom based nonprofit Khalsa Aid's Asia Pacific unit. "Pictures speak- No room in hospital to no room in hotels at Manali in some days," Singh wrote.
Click here to view an archive of the tweet.
Police officer Arun Bothra, who currently serves as the transport commissioner in the state of Odisha, also shared the photo, getting over 1,100 retweets and 9,000 likes.
Click here to view an archive of the tweet.
While reporting on the recent instance of crowds gathering at Manali, several news outlets such as Livemint and Republic had also used the viral photo in their respective featured images.
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Fact Check
BOOM did a reverse image search of the photo, and found a Facebook post from January 24, 2021, carrying the exact image. The image was posted by a page called Himachali Boys and Girls.
According to the post, the picture was taken by 'Amigosblink'. We did a quick search on Facebook, and found that a page by the name 'Amigosblink' had indeed posted the same image a day earlier, on January 23.
In a more recent post, the page itself clarified that it had taken the photo in December 31, 2020, and that it was not recent.
The page's administrator, Ajay Kumar, told BOOM that the picture was indeed taken by him on December 31, 2020 at Manali.
We also found a Facebook live stream by the same page on December 31, 2020, which showed a very similar scenario.
