Is this old man, a suicide bomber ?

It is funny how certain pictures that have been clicked years ago resurface the internet every few years with a new back story.

On 8^th January one such photograph resurfaced on Facebook captioned, “कब्र में जाने की उम्र में, आतंकवादी 72 को चोट पहुंचाने के उद्देश्य से भीड़ में बम-विस्फोट करने जा रहे थे, कि सेना ने पकड़ लिया। उनकी सोच को गहराई से समझने की आवश्यकता है.”

Translation: at the age of going to the grave, the terrorists were going to bomb-blast in the crowd for the purpose of getting the 72 hur, that the army caught it. It is the necessity of understanding their thinking in depth.

This particular photograph carries the picture of an old man who is wearing something of a makeshift jacket using plastic bags. There is an army officer standing next to the man. It is claimed that the old man in the picture was a suicide bomber and was recently captured by the army men.

 

 

 

The same photograph was re-posted a few days later with a different caption.

When the Iraqi army captured this #ISIS old man they asked him, "Why do you want to #bomb yourself and kill innocent people?" He said, "l want to have dinner with the prophet in Heaven". pic.twitter.com/TMrMLDyzVq

— Forsake (@forsake_88) January 26, 2018

 

The Truth

The original post dates back to 24 December 2014 and it is certainly not about a suicide bomber. This post is about a man caught with a hashish jacket on Turkhum border by army men.

The original post was tweeted by Safdar Dawar ( Twitter handle: @DawarSafdar) who is the Former president of Tribal Union of Journalists, FATA Pakistan. He belongs to the North Waziristan Agency and is the current Anchor at FATA Time. The original photograph was also posted a few days later from Pakistan’s largest political debate and discussion platform Siasat.pk (Twitter handle: @siasat.pk).

 

Man with hashish jacket on turkhum border. pic.twitter.com/f04yuy0T9a

— Safdar Dawar (@DawarSafdar) December 27, 2014

 

Man with hashish jacket on turkhum border. pic.twitter.com/UHaMybE21j

— Siasat.pk (@siasatpk) December 28, 2014

But this photograph quickly found its way into the long chain of social media hoax.

Some more such fakes. 

An online platform named Political Forum posted an article on their website which features the same photograph. The article highlights how the ISIS manipulates their subjects on the pretext of religion. It puts forward the question that to what extent are the Islamic extremists willing to go to brainwash their subjects. The reference here is of the old man who is brainwashed to such an extent that he is ready to sacrifice his life.

Don’t Allow Them to Brainwash you. If you bomb yourself; you are heading to hell fire.

Later that month, this photograph was used in a article titled “old bomber and the promise of a heavenly bliss”, posted by a Nigerian website ‘The News’ on 7th January 2016.  The article features an old man presumed to be under the influence of ISIS and wearing a bomb jacket was captured by the Iraqi army. When asked about the reason behind his determination to bomb himself and kill the innocent people, he said that he wants to have dinner with the prophet in heaven.

Photo: Old bomber and promise of heavenly bliss

The same image was used by the same website a year after on 6th January 2017 titled “5,650 killed by suicide bombers worldwide in 2016: report.”

5,650 killed by suicide bombers worldwide in 2016: report

 

The photograph has made multiple rounds with many publications. All of these claims that the old man in the photograph is an ISIS suicide bomber.

Many social media enthusiasts have responded to these fake posts and few of them have taken it to troll as well.

Translation: Owaisi’s father caught peddling drugs