Recently an image went viral on social media that claims that it is the image of Father Stan Swamy. The image shows an old man with an oxygen mask and his foot chained to a hospital bed.
Headline8 in its investigation found that the claim is false.
Claim –
Facebook users Shakeel Burney and Satish Gopalan on July 5 shared an image and wrote:
“84 year old Father Stan Swamy died. RIP our system.”
Another Facebook user Tridib Nilim Dutta shared the image.
Leading newspaper of Assam, Asomiya Pratidin also shared the image of the old man in chains on July 6. In its post, the newspaper stated –
“Social worker Stan Swamy died during captivity.”
In the below image shared by Asomiya Pratidin, we can see an old person with an oxygen mask chained to the hospital bed.
Here you can see the posts of Shakeel Burney, Satish Gopalan and Tridib Nilim Dutta .
Investigation –
Headline8 did a fact check of the image and here is what we found out:
A reverse google image search was done on the image provided in Asomiya Pratidin newspaper. During the investigation Headline8 found out that the old man in the image is not Father Stan Swamy.
Image source: Asomiya Pratidin epaper
The chained old man in the image is Baburam Balwan Singh, a convicted murderer. He was lodged at the district jail of Etah, Uttar Pradesh. He was admitted to a hospital due to breathing problems when the image was taken.
Headline8 also contacted Rangman Das, Senior Journalist of Vishvasnews.
He went through the image and said that the old man in chains is not Stan Swamy and the viral image going viral is fake.
Headline8 also went through several Twitter handles and found out the real identity of Stan Swamy. On comparing the two images, it was revealed that both the images are totally different.
At the last part of the investigation, Headline8 scanned the profile of the above-mentioned Facebook users.
Shakeel Burney has 3834 friends and is followed by 635 people.
Satish Gopalan is also followed by 619 people.
Conclusion –
The image that claims that the old man in chains is not Father Stan Swamy. Headline8 after extensive investigation claims that it is fake.
The original person in the image is Baburam Balwan Singh, a convicted murderer.
