A set of two images put together showing four women sitting in a jeep across a span of years is being widely circulated across social media. The images are viral, claiming that the four women are freedom fighters from the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971.
Claim:
In the first viral image, in a black and white image, four women can be seen sitting in a jeep. While one woman is in the driver’s seat holding the steering wheel, the rest of the women are holding guns.
The image is viral with the claim, “Four Bangladeshi freedom fighters recreate their 1971 photograph in the same Willy’s Jeep.”
Twitter page Indian Aerospace Defence News shared the image with the same claim.
The image is viral with the same claim across Twitter and Facebook.
Fact Check:
We conducted a reverse image search on the black-and-white image and came across the same image posted on the Facebook page of ‘Bangladesh Old Photo Archive’ on June 19, 2023. The caption of the post reads, “Women are posing with gun in a village trip. Bangladesh (1965) Photo courtesy- Renan Ahmed.”
We also found that a Facebook user, Afrina Haque, shared the set of images with a similar viral claim in a post on March 24, 2021. Haque debunked the claim that the women in the viral image were freedom fighters.
Haque claimed that the women in the viral picture were her aunts and that it was clicked in 1965 when they went hunting with family members.
“This is the picture where uncle went hunting with family members in 1965. Two aunts are not alive. Some pages are broadcasting this in the hope of getting likes and comments with false information,” she writes in the caption.
In the comments, Haque also shared pictures featuring these women, one where they are young and the other where they are old.
We then checked the profile of Renan Ahmed, who is tagged in the post by Bangladesh Old Photo Archive. We checked Ahmed’s public posts and found the same black-and-white image of the four women shared in an obituary post by Ahmed in August 2020.
As per the post, Ahmed’s grandmother, Rokeya Ahmed, seen in both photographs, died on August 25, 2020. He stated that the black and white photograph was taken in 1961.
In our Fact Check, we also came across a video report by NewsBangla 24 published on March 31, 2021. The video shows Rokeya Ahmed’s daughter-in-law Riffat Ahmed, who clarifies that the viral image is a personal photograph.
“My husband’s grandfather Alauddin Ahmed and his family would go to a picnic twice a year. After a hunting session and cooking, Ahmed told the women to sit and pose as if they were going hunting,” said Riffat.
While talking about the second image, Riffat Ahmed said, “During the marriage of my elder son, we brought all the old photographs, and everybody appreciated them and became emotional. We then created a before and after of this image in 2017, where all four women were present. Seen in the photograph are Rokeya Ahmed, Ayesha Ahmed, Rashida Ahmed, and Shahnara Ahmed”.
At the 8-second mark in the video report by NewsBangla 24, the original camera which captured the black and white image can be seen with the caption, “The four women of this viral photo on social media are Ayesha Ahmed, Rokeya Ahmed, Rashida Ahmed, and Shahnara Ahmed.”
Conclusion:
We found that the viral images are shared with false claims that these women participated in the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. The viral claim is false as the image was taken in the 1960s, leading upto the war and was taken after a hunting session. The living relatives of the women assert that they were not associated with the Bangladesh Liberation War.
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Fact Check
2023-03-30 09:00:40.0
No, This Set Of Images Doesn’t Show Bangladesh Female Freedom Fighters Recreating Moment From 1971 Liberation War
