A policeman deflating a bike tyre of a Galle-face Protestor? Find Out the Truth…

As the economic and political crisis extends in Sri Lanka, anti-government protests have continued to grow in many sectors, apart from the main protest ground at the Galle-face grounds.

We noticed an image viral among social media users over the last few days claiming to be a recent image of a Sri Lanka police officer, deflating a motor bike tyre of a protester near the Galle-face grounds. However, our investigation found this narration to be misleading.

Social Media Posts

Below image of what appears to be a Sri Lanka Police officer with one hand on the tyre of a motorbike, was shared widely among social media users in Sri Lanka, claiming to be a recent scene during the Galle-face protest ground. This posts implied in a satirical manner, that the police officer was deflating the tyre of the motor bikes, parked at Galle-face, during the recent protests, with the hashtag #GoHomeHota2022

Facebook | Archived

Similar posts can be found from here, here and here.

A post from Sinhala language can be seen here.

Posts with similar content were viral in Sinhala language as seen below.

We decided to carry out an investigation to find out the facts behind this image.

Fact Check

We searched whether such an incident was reported in the media recently or whether the photo was recently taken at the Galle-face Green. However, we were not able to find sufficient evidence in this regard.

After that we did a reverse image search on the viral image and were able to find social media posts with the same image, posted several months ago, on the 10^th January 2022, much before the recent protests at the Galle-face green commenced on the 09^th of April.

Facebook | Archived

Next, we checked the Google Street View near the Galle-face green (image captured from 2020 June) as well and found the below location which appears to have the same backdrop, including the canopy at the Taj Samudra Hotel

Google Street View

However, we have not been able to verify as to which Police station this policeman is attached or in what exact point of time the viral image of the policeman with one hand on a motorbike image was first captured.

However, one thing is clear. This incident doesn’t have any connection with current Galle-face protest as this has been circulating at least 3 months before the protest at Galle-face green started in early April 2022.

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Conclusion:

According to our investigation, we were able to find out that the viral photograph claiming to be a policeman deflating the tyres of motorbikes doesn’t have any relationship with ongoing protests at Galle-face protest grounds. Even though the image appears to be captured near the Galle-face green, the image had been circulating online at least 3 months before the current protests started at the Galle-face grounds.