Some of the indian top wrestlers including Vinesh Phogat , Sakshi Malik, Sangeeta phogat and Bajrang Poonia were detained by the police when they were marching towards the new parliament which was being ingurated.The Wrestlers, who have been demanding the arrest of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) president and BJP MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh over allegations of sexual harassment by at least seven women wrestlers (including a minor), wanted to hold a women’s Maha Panchayat in front of the new Parliament building.
in this backdrop,a selfie of Vinesh Phogat, Sangeeta Phogat and others apparently clicked in a police vehicle started circulating on social media, with the claim that the wrestlers were seen smiling even after being detained by the police.
Filmmaker @ashokpandit also tweeted the viral image of the smiling wrestlers and said that after the drama on the streets, this was their real face. He later deleted the tweet.
Verified account @wokeflix_ tweeted the same image in a meme and wrote ‘Toolkit Activated. Mission Accomplished’
FACT
Wrestler Bajrang Punia tweeted a collage of the two photos (in one, the wrestlers are smiling; in the other, they are not) marking the viral image as ‘fake’. He stated that complaints would be filed against whoever circulated the viral image. This particular tweet was retweeted the Vinesh Phogat herself.
विनेश फोगाट को भी दिल्ली पुलिस ने हिरासत में ले लिया है pic.twitter.com/LzsC9vdxhZ
— Mandeep Punia (@mandeeppunia1) May 28, 2023
Coming to the details of the viral image itself, indiafakenews found that the image had been morphed using Artificial Intelligence app called FaceApp. We used the image of the detained wrestlers shared by Punia, which did not show them smiling, and ran it through different AI-based editing apps to digitally add smiles to the faces. The editing app called “Face App” rendered a result which was an exact match with the viral image.
Hence, a selfie taken by wrestlers Vinesh Phogat, Sangeeta Phogat and others in a police van while being taken away for detention has been edited using an Artificial Intelligence app to show that the wrestlers were smiling. The narrative was grossly manipulated to show that the protest was just a propaganda tactic.
