Parliament security breach: Mysuru SFI leader Vijay Kumar’s photo falsely shared as accused Manoranjan D

In a major security breach, two individuals named Sagar Sharma and Manoranjan D leapt into the Lok Sabha chamber from the public gallery on December 13 while the house was in session, releasing yellow gas from canisters that they had hidden inside their shoes. The two were taken into police custody, and shortly after, a man and a woman named Amol Shinde and Neelam were also detained for protesting outside the Parliament while carrying similar cans that emitted yellow smoke. A total of six people were reportedly involved in hatching the plan, five of whom have been apprehended. During the interrogation, the accused revealed that all of them were associated with the social media page ‘Bhagat Singh Fan Club’.

The visitors’ pass used by accused Sagar Sharma had been issued under Karnataka BJP MP Pratap Simha’s name. Simha later explained that he had issued the pass on being requested by the accused’s father. Opposition leaders have held Simha responsible for the breach and demanded his expulsion.

Against this backdrop, Right Wing influencer and co-founder of the self-proclaimed fact-checking media outlet Only Fact, Vijay Patel claimed on X (formerly Twitter) that one of the accused, Manoranjan D, looked like a ‘communist SFI person’. Two images were juxtaposed alongside each other. One was of the accused while the other was an image of five individuals clicked at an SFI conference, with one of them circled out. Here is an archive of the cached version of the tweet. In another tweet, Vijay asked his followers, “Do you think both people are the same? I am a little confused” while sharing the same set of images. He deleted both the tweets later.

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After Patel’s tweet, several influential Facebook pages amplified the claim that the accused, Manoranjan, was an SFI activist and used the same image. For instance, the Facebook page for the Bharatiya Janata Party for the Mandya district, with 29,000 followers, and the Facebook page for BJP Shivamogga, with 73,000 followers, amplified the claim.

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This claim has been widely circulated on Facebook, with the same caption.

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That the accused Manoranjan D is an SFI activist has also been amplified by several users on X.

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Fact Check

The Facebook page of SFI Karnataka released a statement refuting the viral claim. Dubbing the claims as ‘false information’, they criticized BJP workers for ‘unnecessarily dragging’ the names of SFI and its Mysuru district president Vijay Kumar into the Lok Sabha incident. The statement also calls for appropriate legal action against all individuals and groups involved in “spreading false news on social media”.

We noted that DYFI Karnataka state president Abdul Muneer, too, had taken to Facebook to refute the viral claims. “The SFI remains steadfast, facing baseless accusations, character assassination, and relentless attacks. Using Vijay Kumar’s photo, they “started campaigning in WhatsApp University through IT cell that communists were behind the attack”, his statement read.

Taking a cue from the aforementioned statements, we looked at SFI Mysore’s Facebook page and we found the image in a post dated September 8, 2022.

The Facebook post announced the second Mysuru city conference of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) held in Mysore. Below are other images clicked at the event, where Vijay Kumar can be seen.

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One of the people in the viral image, Jagadish Surya, also refuted the viral claims in a statement on Facebook. “The name of the boy in this photo is T. S. Vijay Kumar, SFI Mysore district president”, his statement read.

We managed to contact Vijay Kumar, who is a free citizen, unlike Manoranjan D, who has been taken into custody by police after the Lok Sabha incident. That we could speak to him over phone is itself a proof that Vijay Kumar and Manoranjan D are distinct individuals.

Vijay also refuted the viral claims and shared some of his pictures with us. The group photo below is taken on December 14, 2023 at 11.59 am.

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Below, we have compared the most recent image of Vijay Kumar (clicked on December 14), with that of Manoranjan D. Apart from the beard, not much is common in their facial features.

Hence, the claim that one of the accused in the Parliament security breach case was an SFI activist is false. The image that is being circulated alongside the claim is that of Vijay Kumar, the Mysore district president of SFI and not Manoranjan D.

Vijay Kumar informed us that he had filed a complaint regarding the matter and shared photos of the same with Alt News.