Image from Yemen viral as dead body of ‘Pappu Shukla’ from Gujarat surrounded by dogs

An image of a man surrounded by dogs is being shared on Twitter and Facebook along with the text, “This is a dead body of Mr. Pappu Shukla ji, a homeless man from Gujarat State (India) who took care of abandoned dogs for many years. He died yesterday and his beloved dogs surrounded and protected his body, refusing to leave his side.. May Pappu Shukla ji Rest In Peace.”

Twitter user @iceman93fk posted the image on October 26. Since then it has been retweeted over 500 times. (archived link)

This is a dead body of Mr. Pappu Shukla ji, a homeless man from Gujarat State (India) who took care of abandoned dogs for many years. He died yesterday and his beloved dogs surrounded and protected his body, refusing to leave his side.. May Pappu Shukla ji Rest In Peace🙏 pic.twitter.com/uUOghaURy9

— ICEMAN (@iceman93fk) October 26, 2020

Similarly, it was also posted by many Facebook users.

Image is from Yemen

A Google search with the keywords ‘Pappu Shukla Gujarat’ does not throw any relevant results. Next, we performed a reverse image search and learnt that the viral image was uploaded on Reddit by user gevidee on October 20 who claimed that the man is Ismael Hadi, a homeless person from Yemen. He used to feed stray dogs. The post added, “He was found dead this morning with the dogs refusing to leave his side.”

Using this as a clue, we performed an advanced search on Twitter and saw that several users had posted this picture including Yemeni conflict analyst Nadwa Dawsari.

Ismael Hadi, a homeless man from Ibb #Yemen, fed stray dogs. This morning people found him dead with his dogs refusing to leave his side. 💔❤️ pic.twitter.com/symVBZ1yHj

— Nadwa Dawsari (@Ndawsari) October 20, 2020

The same was reported by Yemen-based news website Ababil and Al Jazeera Mubasher on October 20.

A video of the man lying dead on the road surrounded by dogs has also been shared by Arab users.

Thus, an image of a homeless man from Yemen who as surrounded by dogs after this death was circulated in India with the claim that the said man is ‘Pappu Shukla’ from Gujarat.