2020 Video of Police Assaulting a Woman is From Jharkhand, Not UP

She was reportedly assaulted for refusing to testify against the man her family had filed a kidnapping complaint.

Fact-Check | The claim states that a woman is being thrashed by a man in Uttar Pradesh under Yogi Adityanath's governance.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A video showing a man assualting and abusing a woman in the presence of two police personnel is being shared on social media with a claim that it is a recent incident that happened in Uttar Pradesh under Yogi Adityanath's governance.

The disturbing video shows the man slapping the woman, pulling her hair violently and abusing her, while the two uniformed men witness the incident.

However, we found that the video is old and is from a village named Barhait of Sahebganj district, Jharkhand.

CLAIM

One of the viral posts said, "नारी सम्मान को बुलन्द करता मुख्यमंत्री योगी आदित्यनाथ का पुलिस प्रशासन....! मौजूदा भाजपा सरकार में ऐसे प्रकरण प्रतिदिन आम हो गए हैं! #ShameOnBjpGovernment #ShameOnYogiAdityanath #NoMoreBjp"

(Translation : Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's police working towards women empowerment. This has become a common occurrence in the current BJP government.)

An archive of this post can be seen here.

(Source: Facebook /Screenshot)

Archives of more such claims on Facebook and Twitter can be seen here, here, and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We fragmented the video into multiple keyframes using InVid Google Chrome extension and then conducted a reverse image search on them using Google.

This led us to a video report published by News18 Bihar Jharkhand on 27 July 2020.

The report specified that an inspector assualted the woman in Barhait village of Jharkhand when she arrived at the police station to testify about her decision of marrying the partner of her choice.

The news report led us to a tweet by Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, which condemned the act and ordered strict action against the guilty in-charge.

Next, we did a keyword search on Google using 'Jharkhand woman abused by police' and found news reports about the incident.

A report by Hindustan Times mentioned that after the CM's order in the matter, the accused, police officer Harish Pathak of Sahibganj district’s Barhait police station was suspended.

A criminal case against the accused was also registered.

Another report by The Times of India stated that the woman was called to the police station on 22 July 2020, to record her statement about her kidnapping case filed by her family against her lover, Ramu Mandal and his father.

However, the police officer lost his temper when the woman tried to dismiss the complaint filed by her family because she was in love with Ramu.

Evidently, the video is an old one and is from Jharkhand and not from Uttar Pradesh, as is being claimed.

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