A picture of two TISS professors is being shared on social media with the claim that these husband and wife are involved in trying to secure bail for the accused in Palghar lynching in which two Shadhus and their driver lost their lives. According to users, the name of the duo is Pradeep Prabhu and Siraj Balsara.

A Facebook page name Sambit Patra BJP shared the picture with a caption "Congress' misdeeds...Activist providing lawyers, money, and legal aid to the killers of Shadhus in Palghar: Peter Dimelo and Siraj Balsara (Spouse). Peter changed his name to Pradeep Prabhu. He has been a special member of the NAC sub-committee formed by Sonia Gandhi in the UPA government. Think where Arnab Goswami has hit. It is not just about the name. The thing is to panic before the curtain rises from misdeeds". ( Roughly translated from Hindi )

The viral post received more than 1000 likes and 354 shares at the time of writing this article.

Fact Check 

In our investigation, we found that the viral claim is completely false. This picture is of a well-known professor and documentary filmmaker of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

After doing the reverse image search of the viral image we found a blog published in 2007 in which the same picture can be seen. This blog post was related to the film 'Our Family' which was directed by K.P. Jayasankar and Anjali Monteiro. According to the caption, Anjali Monteiro and K.P. Jayasankar are Professors at the Centre for Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

After searching related words on Google, we found a news report of The Hindu published on April 26, 2020 titled 'Palghar lynching: TISS professors caught in midst of fake news'. According to the news, the content of the post was against Mr. Prabhu and Ms. Balsara, the photos used were of the two professors. Prof. Monteiro said they had been intimated about the post by a Facebook friend and were shocked to see their photos. He said, “We reported the post, but Facebook reporting doesn’t give much leeway as you can only report them under certain categories. We reported it thrice under but got a message saying that the photo did not go against the community guidelines,”.

We also Checked the profile of Professor Jaishankar KP and Professor Anjali Monteiro in the Faculty tab on the TISS website.

Who are Pradeep Prabhu and Shiraz Balsara?

Both Pradeep Prabhu and Shiraz Balsara belong to “Kashtakari Sanghatana”, an organization working for rights of Adivasis in Palghar. In the villages of Maharashtra CPI(M) and Kashtakari Sanghatana are rivals. As of now, there is no verified information about Kashtakari Sanghatana trying to get the bails for people who were arrested. While speaking to The Hindu, Ms. Balsara denied these claims.

In conclusion, we found that the picture of two TISS professors is being circulated on social media with the false claim that they are the activists involved in trying to secure bail for the Palghar Sadhu lynching accused.