Morphed photo shows Subhas Chandra Bose reading news of his own death

Alt News recently received a request to verify a purported image of Subhas Chandra Bose on our WhatsApp number (+91 76000 11160). It is being circulated with the claim that Bose was reading the news of his own death in the papers. The viral message says that the circumstances around Bose’s death are the “biggest lie by Congress”. The newspaper in the photo shows a story about the leader’s death.

It is widespread on WhatsApp with the accompanying claim. We received numerous requests to fact-check this picture.

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The same photo was being circulated online in 2019 with an identical claim but in Bangla.

Fact-check

We performed a reverse image search after cropping the text out of the photo, which led us to the original version. It was posted by a user named Anuj Dhar on May 27, 2018. Dhar is the author of the book ‘Kundrum: Subhas Bose Life After Death’. The caption stated that it showed Netaji reading the Nippon Times, Japan’s largest English newspaper, and the daily can be seen in the image.

Subhas Chandra Bose reading Nippon Times (now The Japan Times), Japan’s largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper @japantimes pic.twitter.com/6A7YMXGEkW

— Anuj Dhar (@anujdhar) May 27, 2018

This picture was posted by the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Memorial in Delhi in May 2018. In addition, an outlet named ‘My City Links‘ carried it in a January 23, 2020 report in remembrance of the Indian revolutionary.

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In August 2019, Anuj Dhar had tweeted that the photograph was edited by @BiplabC2. The handle is now suspended.

Original picture with some reimagination by @BiplabC2.#Netaji #DeathThatWasnt #TheBoseMystery #Gumnaami @prosenjitbumba @srijitspeaketh @chandrachurg @PanickarS @koushikzworld @SayakSen6 @Sayani_Pandit pic.twitter.com/ep8T70g6Uj

— Anuj Dhar (@anujdhar) August 18, 2019

An edited photo of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was, therefore, circulated with the claim that he was reading the news of his own death. It is noteworthy that Bose’s death is shrouded in mystery. It is believed that he died in a plane crash in 1945, but this wasn’t confirmed since his remains were never found.