Lighthouse Journalism found an image being widely circulated on social media platforms, which showed doctors bowing down. It was being claimed along with the post that it was a remarkable gesture bby doctors at AIIMS, Delhi honouring organ donor Sitaram Yechury with a last salute. The post has been doing rounds after CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury passed away. During the investigation we found that the image is old and of a Chinese doctor from Tibet and not recent from AIIMS, New Delhi.
Claim:
X user @NailuUnions shared the image and the claim on their X handle.
Check the archive version of the claim here.
Other users too are sharing the same claim on social media platforms.
Investigation:
We started our investigation by running a reverse image search on the image being shared online.
We found the image on a website, news.cgtn.com.
The news published in 2016 mentioned: Zao Ju, a 41-year-old doctor from east China’s Anhui Province, volunteered to work in Shannan, Tibet Autonomous Region with a group of other doctors two months ago.
The picture was captioned: Fellow doctors were pictured paying their respects to Zhao with deep bows at a hospital in Hefei City, the capital of Anhui Province. And netizens were quick to pay tribute online to a man who showed selfless devotion to helping others.
Other news organisations too shared the image.
The picture was captioned: Doctors and nurses bow to the body of Zhao Ju at a hospital in Hefei City, the capital of East China’s Anhui Province, Sept. 29, 2016. Zhao volunteered to join a team of doctors sent to work in Shannan, Tibet Autonomous Region in July as part of the province’s assistance program. The 41-year-old suffered symptoms of headache and dizziness a few days after arriving in Shannan, and was later found to have a ruptured aneurysm in his head. Zhao died on Sept. 22 and donated his body parts. (Photo/CFP)
Similar report was found on other platforms too.
The report said: In the middle of his duty, Zhao Ju felt a severe headache and dizziness. He was then found to have a brain aneurysm (swelling of blood vessels in the brain). Not long after, the disease caused Zhao Ju, who was only 41 years old, to die. In accordance with the will he left before he died, Zhao Ju donated his organs, namely his kidneys, liver and corneas. The will was delivered by Zhao Ju’s father.
The AIIMS doctors did praise the family of late CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury for their noble decision to donate his body for medical research.
Conclusion: Old picture of staff paying tribute to a Chinese doctor who passed away in Tibet is being shared with misleading claims of AIIMS doctors paying their tribute to Sitaram Yechury. Viral claim is misleading.
