A poster shared on social media claims that a Pakistani man masquerading as an Indian cricket fan was urinating at The Oval, London, during the India vs Australia game. A collage of photographs, where a man dressed in the Indian tricolour can be seen, was also shared along with the poster. The text reads, “Farid Khan, this man from Pakistan wear Indian flag dress pretend to be an Indian cricket fan is peeing in The Oval gallery during India v/s Australia match and also recorded the video and posted on social media, video goes to viral then London police arrested him and his 2 brothers. Such a shameful act by Pakistani citizen”. It suggested that a Pakistani citizen attempted to tarnish India’s image by pretending to be an Indian fan who indulged in the obscenity.

A Facebook page –The Indian Stories – posted the same poster on June 10, 2019.

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Posted by The Indian Stories on Sunday, 9 June 2019

Fact-check

Alt News found that the man dressed in the tricolour is an avid Indian cricket fan named Narendra Bhojani. He is one of the three Bhojani brothers known for attending Indian cricket matches dressed in the Indian tricolour; the other two being Harivardan and Suresh.

The siblings manage a cricket fan page, which was found to be taken down at the time of writing. Bhojani has also been photographed by Getty Images as “an Indian fan”.

Narendra Bhojani hails from Kutch, Gujarat and was interviewed by a Gujarati web portal Leva Patel News on April 7, 2016. In the interview, Narendra Bhojani can be heard saying, “We [brothers] were born in India and live in London”. The interviewer introduced him as a Gujarati. He further added, “We are a special group, we call ourselves Bhojani brothers but other people also join us”.

Fact-checking other photographs in the collage

With a reverse image search on Google, it was found that the second image where a group of policemen can be seen nabbing a person is old and unrelated to the urinating incident. The image dates back to 2013 and pertains to an incident where an anti-G8 protester was arrested by the London police.

Alt News couldn’t verify the picture of an Iranian national passport. However, it may be noted that this picture contradicts the claim itself as the message talks about a Pakistani citizen whereas, the passport is of an Iranian national.

The claim that Farid Khan, a Pakistani citizen, urinated in public during a cricket match while pretending to be an Indian is false. The man involved in the obscenity is an Indian-origin man named Narendra Bhojani.

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About the Author

Jignesh is a writer and researcher at Alt News. He has a knack for visual investigation with a major interest in fact-checking videos and images. He has completed his Masters in Journalism from Gujarat University.