As India fights Wuhan coronavirus, propagandists masquerading as ‘journalists’ and ‘historians’ seem to have taken upon themselves to spread misinformation. ‘Journalist’ Rana Ayyub today took to Twitter to share an image of some men made to squat and hold their ears as punishment. The men were standing on side of a road in a line.

Rana Ayyub’s now-deleted tweet

In a now-deleted tweet, Ayyub claimed that the labourers were being punished for leaving the lockdown. However, the image is not of labourers being punished but is of those who broke the curfew last week. As pointed out by Twitter user @AttomeyBharti, the image is from 24th March, 2020 from Kanpur.

24th March, 2020 image shared by Rana Ayyub as recent

As per ABP News, the above men were punished by the Kanpur Police for flouting lockdown guidelines in wake of coronavirus pandemic on 24th March, 2020, Tuesday.

The same image was also shared by ‘historian’ and author William Dalrymple with similar claims.

Now deleted tweet of William Dalrymple.

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Dalrymple, too, has now deleted the tweet.

However, even before Rana Ayyub and William Dalrymple tweeted the misleading image, it was shared by Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union’s official Twitter account.

JNUSU tweet

The JNUSU tweet is still not deleted, though. An archived version of the same can be accessed here.