By Srijit Das
An image of a man carrying a wrapped mannequin on his bike in Egypt is circulating on social media platforms with a false communal claim that the photo shows a Muslim man carrying a corpse on a bike.
BOOM found that the incident took place in Egypt when a passerby clicked the photo of a clothing store employee transferring a mannequin from one shop to another, on a bike.
Several right wing users posted the image with a caption taking a dig at the Muslim community, "Her Abdul was different from everyone". (Original Text in Hindi: उसका अब्दुल सब से अलग था)".
The image is circulating in the backdrop of an incident of brutal stabbing and murder which was reported from Delhi's Shahbad Dairy on May 29 where the murder accused is a Muslim man and the victim is a minor Hindu girl. Disturbing CCTV footage showing the man stabbing the victim multiple times and later bludgeoning her head is circulating on social platforms.
See one such tweet below.
Click here to view the tweet,
The picture is also doing the rounds on Facebook with a similar communal claim.
Click here to view one such post.
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Fact Check
BOOM performed a reverse image search and found multiple news articles from June 2, 2023, in Arabic reporting that the incident took place in Egypt.
An Egypt-based news outlet Cairo24 published an article with the viral picture stating that it shows a man carrying a mannequin on a bike after the owner of a ready-made clothing store requested a transport company to deliver the statue from their shop to the Mokattam area in Cairo.
The report also states that the motorcyclist, as per the request of the shop owner, reached the shop on May 27 to receive the mannequin, dismantled and placed it on the bike for the transportation.
Another article by an Egyptian daily ElWatan News stated that Egypt's Ministry of Interior provided a clarification about the picture. The report states that the Interior ministry of Egypt debunked the claim of a motorcyclist carrying a corpse and mentioned that it is of a biker who was carrying a mannequin.
The article also quoted Egypt's Ministry of Interior saying that the owner of the shop posted a comment on the Facebook page of the shop after the photo was circulated on some satirical pages with the same claim.
Taking a cue, we ran a related keyword search in Arabic and found multiple Facebook posts by an Egypt-based clothing company BG Collection on May 30 and May 31 about the picture.
The company, in those posts, clarified about the picture and mentioned that the person on the bike was working for them and transferring a mannequin from their Gamal Abdel Nasser branch to Mokattam.
Click here to view one of these posts.
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