News Outlets Run Picture Of Pulwama Attack Mastermind Created Using An App

A photograph widely reported to be that of terrorist Abdul Rashid Ghazi alias Kamran used by several media outlets with news about him being killed by forces in an encounter, was created using an app.

Four days after the attack on a convoy of Central Reserve Police Force personnel which left at least 40 soldiers dead, news broke that Ghazi the alleged mastermind of the attack had been killed in an encounter. Various news outlets carried a photograph of Ghazi wearing a black uniform with a walkie talkie in his hand and a baton attached to his belt.

The same photo was used by many media outlets and tweeted by journalists.

The photo was also used by India Today in a video story where the anchor says, "For the first time on India Today you are seeing images of the mastermind, the Afghan IED expert who is believed to have trained Ahmed Dar..." He then adds, "These are first pictures sent to us from Srinagar sent to us by our bureau chief there, Ashraf Wani. The first set of pictures on TV of this terrorist." All the while the screen shows various photos of Ghazi including the one BOOM found to be doctored.

It is not clear how reporters came in possession of the photo or if the photo was posted to a social media account belonging to Ghazi.

FACT-CHECK

A Twitter user Shuvankar Mukherjee pointed out that the photo used by various media outlets seemed edited.

BOOM analysed the photo and found that it did indeed look edited with the face of Ghazi oddly different from the rest of the body.

BOOM reverse imaged searched the photo and got several hits with many people sporting the exact same uniform and posing the same way as Ghazi.

One photo that stood out was that of Guilherme Leão, from Sao Paulo in Brazil. Leão work with the Sao Paulo Metro Security and shot to fame after being covered by many media outlets for his good looks.

We looked through Leão's Instagram account and found a photo matching the one for Ghazi.

https://www.instagram.com/p/l5xq2ZqkQh/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

We placed both their photos side by side and compared it and found stark similarities.

A further search also led us to results for mobile applications and web applications where a user could add any photo to a police uniform.