Gujarat Congress Seva Dal shares photo from Bangladesh as aftermath of rain in India

A photo of a woman cooking food for her children on a makeshift boat while stuck in a flooded area is viral on social media with the claim that this is “present India”.

The photo was shared by the Gujarat Pradesh Congress Sevadal on Facebook with a Hindi caption that reads, “A live example of present India, anyway, you keep building mosques and temples”.

The photo has also been shared on Twitter with the same caption by Congress worker @MayankpareekINC.

वर्तमान भारत की जीती जागती #तस्वीर है ये

खैर आप #मंदिर_मस्जिद बनाइये😢#mayankpareekinc
pic.twitter.com/mElvGFkDU7

— Mayank Pareek (@MayankpareekINC) July 23, 2021

It is massively viral on both Twitter and Facebook.

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Old photo from Bangladesh

We did a reverse image on Google and found that the photo is old and used by various news outlets between 2019 and 2020 as a photo of the flood situation in the Northeast. The photo was used by DNA, The Times of India, Zee News Bangla and NE Now.

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We dug further and found a PDF titled ‘Emergency Plan of Action (EPoA) Bangladesh: Flood’ uploaded by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. The PDF file had the same photo described as “Flood situation in Kurigram” and was credited to RDRS, a social organisation based in Bangladesh. The PDF document said that the disaster took place in July 2016.

We also found the photo uploaded on Pinterest by National Geographic with credits given to Shamsul Haque Suza.

Alt News spoke with Shamsul Haque Suza who told us that the photo was clicked by him in 2016. The location in the photo is Ulipur Upazila, which is in the Kurigram District, located in North-West Bangladesh. He was employed with the RDRS in 2016 and was covering the floods for the organisation. Shamsul further said that over the years many organisations have used this photo but most of them never gave him any credit.

Hence, an old photo from Bangladesh was shared as the “present situation” in India due to heavy rainfall. While the viral photo is not from India, several states in the country have recently experienced incessant downpours triggering floods and landslides.