Old Video of Police Scuffle With ISKCON Devotees Resurfaces
The police personnel shown in the video are not from West Bengal, but Goa.
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CLAIM
A video claiming to show ISKCON devotees being beaten up by the West Bengal police has gone viral.
Several users shared the video with similar claims on Facebook. This video has resurfaced with this claim recently.
One of the first instances of this claim was made on 25 November 2018, when this video was shared on YouTube by a channel called ISKCON Truth.
TRUE OR FALSE?
The claim is completely false. The police personnel shown in the video are not from West Bengal, but Goa.
The same video had gone viral a year ago with the claim that the video has Krishna devotees being beaten up by Christians. This claim was proved false then too.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
On going through the video, The Quint found two frames in the video which, on putting together, showed that the vehicle belonged to the Goa Police.
‘Goa Police’ was written on the vehicle as is shown by the screenshot of the video given below.
With further research, it was found that AltNews had debunked the earlier claim that Krishna devotees were beaten up by Christians. They had found a Reddit thread which had discussions of the same video being circulated in 2013, and about the incident being from 2008. The text contained in the thread said:
“Eight Russians arrested for clash with police.
Religious chants by a group of Russian members of the Hare Ram Hare Krishna sect near the Mapusa police station took a violent turn on Tuesday when the Russians clashed with the police and ended up getting assaulted by the public. Two policemen were injured in the clashes and the eight Russians have been arrested on charges of rioting and assaulting cops.
According to the Mapusa police, a group of Russians dressed in saffron attire were seen marching along the main streets of Mapusa chanting ‘Hare Ram, Hare Krishna’, equipped with dholak (drum) and a harmonium.
Irritated by the singing and consequent traffic congestion that resulted along the main road opposite municipal market, some citizens informed the police about the nuisance.
A police team, led by PSI Tulshidas Dhavaskar and Head Constable Ramesh Kalangutkar, rushed to the site and requested the revelers to stop their activity.
However, the revelers paid little heed to the police and continued with their activity. Finding himself on the defensive, PSI Dhavaskar requisitioned additional police force, following which about four constables were rushed to take stock of the situation.
The police team stopped the march at the taxi stand and asked the group to come to the police station. As the policemen were trying to take the members of the group to the police station, the group members allegedly began assaulting the cops. Police Constables Sushant Chopdekar and Prabhakar Porob sustained injuries in the scuffle.
On noticing the cops being at the receiving end of the group, general public intervened and thrashed the foreigners before handing them over to the police.
While police managed to arrest eight members of the group, others fled from the site. Those arrested include Egoloboi Bable, Eugene Cathrina, Ekolo Valanko, Alexander Valanko, Costancio Roma, Terence Tubo, Gory Gorbelo and Andre Adito. All the eight accused have been booked under Sections 143, 145, 147 149 and 353 IPC. PSI Tulshidas Dhavaskar is investigating the case.”
After going through this piece of text, it can be clearly said that the claim being made about the video currently is false.
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