A picture of a man along with a screenshot of his Facebook profile is being shared on social media with a claim that the man, who belongs to the minority community, was posing as a Sikh for the farmers’ protest.
“This is the reality of farmers protest happening right now. Nazeer Mohd turns Navdeep Mohanpuria. These paid farmers are actually the one behind Khalistan and Life-threatening slogans, ” the text read.
Here’s the link to the above post.
More such posts can be seen here, here, here, here and here.
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the post and found the claim to be false.
We scanned through Facebook and looked for the profile mentioned in the picture and found the account of Nazeer Mohd. However, his profile is locked.
But while looking through the viral Facebook posts, we realised that some of the users have shared the same picture, with the upload date on it.
According to the screenshot, Nazeer uploaded his picture in a turban in April 2020.
However, when we looked for media reports on the latest farm laws which have triggered the ongoing protests, we found that the three agricultural bills were passed in the Parliament in September 2020.
- The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020
- The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020
- The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020
The timeline of the Farm Bills 2020 (Source: The India Forum /PIB)
- June 5, 2020 – The Government of India promulgated three ordinances relating to agricultural marketing that represented a fundamental reorientation of the existing regulatory framework.
- September 14, 2020 – Ordinances brought to Parliament as legislative bills for discussion, approval during the Monsoon session.
- September 17, 2020 – The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill 2020, Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 and Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill passed in Lok Sabha.
- September 20, 2020 – Bills passed in Rajya Sabha too.
- September 27, 2020 – The bills received presidential assent and were notified in the gazette, leading to farmers’ protest.
From the timeline, it is clear that the ordinances were promulgated in June, two months after Nazeer uploaded his picture in a turban.
This proves that the picture of Nazeer, which is in circulation has nothing to do with the ongoing farmers’ protest.
If you want to fact-check any story, WhatsApp it now on +91 11 7127 9799
Click here for Latest News updates and viral videos on our AI-powered smart news
