Old Photo From French Archaeological Site Falsely Linked To Dharmasthala Mass Burial Case

A photo, purportedly showing human skeletons that were exhumed, is going viral across social media platforms with users linking it to the ongoing investigation into the allegations of murders and mass burials of young women and minors in Dharmasthala, Karnataka.

“It would be good if there was at least one animal in these skeletons, all of them coming on the roads. But here everyone is human. #Dharmashtala,” reads the Telugu post on Facebook.

What Is The Dharmasthala Mass Burial Case?

A special investigation team is investigating the allegations of murders and mass burials of young women and minors spanning two decades in the temple town of Dharmasthala, in Dakshina Kannada district. The team has, so far, dug out 12 out of the 13 locations identified by a whistleblower and reportedly found bones and skeletons in two of them. A former sanitation worker had alleged that he was coerced by influential people into burying the bodies of victims of alleged rape and murder spanning two decades, prompting the state government to form an SIT.

Fact Check

Newschecker ran a keyword search for “Dharmasthala skeletons,” which led us to reports by major media outlets stating that the SIT has recovered multiple skeletal remains on the sixth day of exhumation near site no.11.

“The SIT personnel found a human skull and a few bones of a human body at the new site in the Banglegudde area. A red sari with a knot, which was suspected as a suicide knot, was found at the end of a tree at the site, sources said,” read The Hindu’s report, dated August 5, 2025.

“The skeletal remains were found on the surface about 100 metres away from the 11th site shown by the complainant-witness. Around 100 bones, including a skull and spinal bones, were recovered,” read this August 4, 2025 Deccan Herald report, adding that on July 31, skeletal remains of a male were discovered at the sixth site identified by the complainant-witness.

None of the reports, however, featured the viral photograph, which showed several intact human skeletons and skulls, further contradicting the claim.

Origin Of The Image

Newschecker then ran a reverse image search, which led us to this article by French daily LeMonde, dated May 5, 2021, having a similar photograph. “View of the tomb of soldiers of the royal army, buried in the Jacobin convent, in Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine),” read the caption, crediting the photograph to INRAP (French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research).   The same photograph was also seen in this Le Parisien article, dated May 5, 2021, stating that the skeletons found in Rennes, France, belonged to soldiers who fought the Breton army in 1491. 

According to the French articles, from 2011 to 2013, a team from INRAP unearthed hundreds of bodies in the same Jacobin convent where the fate of Brittany, a region in France, was sealed more than five centuries earlier. The reports led us to this May 5, 2021 study in PLOS One, a peer-reviewed open access mega journal, which stated that the skeletons likely belonged to soldiers from the two enemy armies who fought during a major event of Breton history: the siege of Rennes in 1491, which ended by the wedding of the Duchess of Brittany with the King of France and signalled the end of the independence of the region.

A comparison of the viral photograph (left) with the one taken by INRAP in 2021 (right) proved that it was the same image that had been cropped and flipped horizontally, before being falsely linked to the Dharmasthala mass burial case.

Also Read: Devotees ‘Taxed’ At Tarakeshwar Ganga? Know The Truth Behind Sukanta Majumdar’s Viral Claim

Conclusion

Viral photograph claiming to show skeletons exhumed during the probe into the Dharmasthala mass burial case was found to be from France.

Sources
Le Monde article, May 5, 2021
INRAP article, May 5, 2021
PLOS One study, May 5, 2021