On a day when Delhi police named JNU Students’ Union president Aishe Ghosh as part of the mob that had attacked students and vandalised property in the university campus, messages have been circulating in social media that the injury on her hand is fake as it is seen switching hands in different images.
The following message has gone viral on WhatsApp, claiming with photos that seems to show that the plaster on her hand swithces hands. In some pictures the plaster is seen on her left hand, while in the others it is on her right hand. The message wonders if Aishe Ghosh wake up every morning and decide which hand is hurt.
The message ends with “no you decide what is the truth”, implying that Aishe Ghosh is faking her injury. These images are also being circulated on Twitter, accusing that her injured hand is not consistent.
Is it true that the left-wing student’s union leader is wearing her plaster on different hands on different occasions? We looked at various photographs of various events she had attended after the January 5 incident when she was injured, and it seems mirror images of actual photographs are being used to spread misinformation against her. All photographs published by media show that Aishe’s left hand has plaster, which means that the photographs showing the plaster on her right hand are flipped.
The following photograph was taken by Indian Express and published in a report on January 7. We can see that this image has been flipped vertically to create the top left image in the WhatsApp message to claim that the plaster is on her right hand. The image has also been cropped to remove the text in posters and media microphones, so that it can’t be caught that it is actually a mirror image.
Similarly, the second image from left is also a mirror image, as it is from the same event where the above Indian Express photo was taken. This image was created by vertically flipping the following photograph taken by Hindustan Times, which was also cropped to remove the poster behind Aishe.
Moreover, there are multiple videos of Aishe Ghosh talking to media, along with the press conference from where the above pictures were taken, and all such videos show that her left hand is injured and the plaster is on that hand only.
Therefore, it can be the concluded the viral messages claiming that Aishe Ghosh wears her plaster on a different hand on different days is wrong and it is based on fake images created by flipping the actual photographs.
Aishe Ghosh was injured on 5 January when unknown masked goons had launched an attack on several hostels in attack. The attacks were preceded by large scale violence by left-wing students attempting to boycott classes in protest against fee hike in the university. JNU administration and police have alleged that left-wing groups, where Aishe Ghosh was also involved, had physically attacked students and prevented them from registering for the winter semester to enforce the boycott.
They had also vandalised the university server room and disabled Wi-Fi in the campus, preventing students from registering online. Aishe was one of the named in FIR filed for vandalising the server room. Several students and ABVP leaders were injured in the attack by left-wing groups. Later in the day, some left-wing leader also attacked in an apparent retaliation by some masked goons, and Aishe was injured in that attack.
