No, this Indian army personnel is not stealing shoes from Kashmiri youth

“army man stealing shoes of kashmir youth* boot choor” A photo of an Indian army jawan carrying two pairs of shoes was shared by a Facebook page, Kashmir with the aforementioned text. The claims suggest that the jawan in the picture is stealing shoes of Kashmiri youth. This particular post was shared close to 1500 times.

Several users have shared this same image on Facebook with similar claims. At the time of writing this article, another post by an individual user had accumulated more than 3000 shares.

What is the truth?

Based on the information inscribed in the image (PEERZADA WASEE 2018), Alt News contacted Peerzada Waseem, a photographer associated with Indian News Service. Waseem said, “As far as I remember, I took this picture on September 13, 2018. That time, gunfire broke out in Arampora town in Sopore in which two militants were killed by the soldiers. So after the encounter, the soldier was carrying the shoes of the suspected slain militant.” He further said that the context with which the image is being shared on social media is not true. Waseem had posted the same photo on his Twitter account as well.

A soldier carrying the shoes of Slain Militants killed in the gun fight with the government forces in Arampora Sopore on thursday. In an encounter two non local rebels killed on 13/2018 pic.twitter.com/F4iMWWKE6h

— peerzada waseem (@waseemjourno) September 13, 2018

Waseem also sent the original picture over email to Alt News. By looking at the EXIF data, we verified that the image was indeed taken on September 13th at 2:44 pm.

The same shoes can also been seen in a photo of yet another Kashmiri journalist which shows the arms and ammunition captured from the slain militants.

Arms and ammunition recovered from two JeM militants killed in #Sopore encounter. #Kashmir pic.twitter.com/Q7x2hzQYT9

— Noor Ul Haq (@Noor_2018k) September 13, 2018

We have juxtaposed the two images below and the two pairs of shoes in the two pictures are indeed the same.

An article published by The Telegraph on September 13, 2018 also corroborates that in an encounter with the security forces, two militants died near Arampora, Sopore of Baramulla district.