The photo of Qutubuddin Ansari is genuine

Fact: This photo has been used repeatedly throughout India and the world. The victim, Qutubuddin Ansari, is seen pleading for mercy to the rioters. Many questions that arise (and some of which were raised by the then RSS chief K S Sudarshan [1931-2012] in his speech in Nagpur on 4^thOctober 2003), are:

1-A MASSIVE CLUE IS GOT ON THIS PHOTO BEING FAKE (means taken after the incident  by the photographer asking the victim to pose thus, or taken when Ansari was genuinely in such a position but definitely after the incident was over) looking at the bandage on the poor victim’s face. This suggests that after the incident was over, bandage was applied to his face, and then the photo was clicked.  If this photo was clicked with the mob targeting him and he pleading a bloodthirsty mob for mercy, how did he have the time to apply bandage on his face?

2-Also, it seems scarcely believable that the victim is pleading to rioters to spare his life on the first floor of the building, no rioter is seen in the photo, the photographer Arko Dutta was present at that very moment in that building to snap this in his camera and the rioters did nothing to either the photographer or the victim and allowed him to snap such a clear photo of the victim.

3-How and why did the rioters leave him alive and not kill him?

4-How was the photographer allowed to take the photo by the rioters? Why did they not attack him?

5-How, at least, did the rioters not destroy his camera if they would have left both Ansari and the photographer alive?

And  a couple more:

6-Can the photographer, Mr. Arko Datta of the Reuters, explain any of the above questions?

7- Can Mr Ansari answer any of the above questions and other questions which may be raised on this issue?

    Here it must be said that the poor victim Qutubuddin Ansari is reported to have said “This photo was taken after the mob had left my house. The police were there and I was very scared and at this time the photo was clicked”.  This is what has been said by a senior journalist of Gujarat. However, we could not get such a newspaper report available today on the web. But to be fair, we also could not get any report in which Ansari claims to be pleading before a mob to spare his life. So it is possible that Qutubuddin Ansari himself denies that he was pleading to a blood-mercy mob. In this report it is said by a Muslim website itself that he was pleading to security forces (after the mob had left) and not to a blood-thirsty mob.

http://www.indianmuslimobserver.com/2013/02/face-of-gujarat-riots-qutubuddin-ansari.html

Someone must now pin-pointedly ask him about this. If Mr Ansari claims that he indeed was pleading before  a bloodthirsty  mob, then it must be asked to him as to how he had bandage applied on his face. The poor guy is also fed up of the constant use of his photo and harassment and has urged the media to leave him alone many times, starting from as early as August 2003.

We repeat here that we have utmost sympathies for the victim, Mr Qutubuddin Ansari since he was no doubt a victim of the riots.  But that cannot be a license to concoct a fake photo and circulate it the world over instigating innocent people to terrorism.