Alwaght-A young Palestinian man from the besieged Gaza Strip and a Sikh from Canada are in shock after being wrongly identified as among the ISIS terrorists who took part in the Paris attacks last Friday, which left over 130 people dead.
Sami Abu Rus, a journalism student at al-Aqsa University, told Palestinian Ma'an news agency that he was shocked after seeing his image posted online by ISIS Takfiri media groups praising him as one of the "lions" who attacked Paris.
Abu Rus, who is a resident of al-Nuseirat refugee camp, said he has never left the Gaza Strip and only found out that his photo had been used after being told by friends.
Initially he dismissed it as a joke, before his photo was also published by a site affiliated with ISIS.
The young Palestinian pointed out that his family was outraged that he was identified as one of the attackers and immediately denied the accusations and condemned the attacks, saying they had no relation to Islam.
"My family and I condemn terrorist attacks against civilians”, Abu Rus said.
One of the photos of Abu Rus appeared in the Egyptian al-Wattan newspaper and other Egyptian media, while ISIS-affiliated media published two of his photos.
He said he believes they were taken from his Facebook page, or another social media group.
Several similar photos falsely accusing innocent people of committing the Paris massacre have also appeared online, including a picture of a Sikh man posted in Spanish media sit La Razon which shows him wearing a suicide explosives belt and holding a copy of the Holy Quran.
The Canadian Sikh man is threatening to sue news outlets saying his image was photo-shopped and wrongly identified as one of the Paris attackers. Veerender Jubbal said he was concerned for his own safety and had to correct many of the people tweeting the image by saying, “Let us start with basics. Never been to Paris. Am a Sikh dude with a turban Living in Canada.” The image was actually a selfie taken by Jubbal in 2014. The iPad he used to take the photo was altered to look like a Qur'an, and a suicide bomb vest was added to his shirt.
Several news outlets in Europe used the false image, saying it showed one of the Paris attackers.