Old Video of Maratha Protests Passed Off as Attack on Assam Police

A video of the Maratha agitation from 2018 is being circulated on social media with misleading claims.

Video of Maratha agitation in 2018 is being circulated on WhatsApp with the claim that it is from Assam. 

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

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CLAIM

A video is being circulated on WhatsApp with the claim that violent clashes broke out between civilians and Assam Police following which an angry mob attacked the police.

In the video you can see clashes between the Police and civilians. The civilians, who constitute an angry mob, are using stones to attack the policemen.

Screenshot of the query received on The Quint’s WhatsApp helpline.(Photo Courtesy: WhatsApp)

TRUE OR FALSE?

The Quint could verify that the video is from Maratha protests in 2018 and is now being shared on WhatsApp with a misleading message.

This is therefore false.

Violent clashes had broken out between an angry mob and the police in Aurangabad on 26 July 2018. This happened after a Maratha youth, whose name is Kakasaheb Shinde, jumped to death in the Godavari river. Shinde was a part of the agitation by Maratha community for reservation in government jobs and education.

(Photo: Aroop Mishra/The Quint)

WHAT WE FOUND

On breaking down the video into several keyframes using Invid extension and conducting a reverse image search using Yandex search engine we traced it back to a video which was uploaded by a local Marathi channel called ‘Policenama’ in July 2018.

Screenshot.(Photo Courtesy: YouTube)

Taking cues from the video, we conducted a Keyword search on Google using terms like ‘Aurangabad protests’ and ‘Kakasaheb Shinde’ and were directed to a report on the incident by the news channel, India Today.

A day after Kakasaheb Shinde’s death, during the protests, the agitation for the Maratha reservation had taken a violent turn in Aurangabad in Marathwada where civilians attacked the police.

An archived version of the video can be seen here.

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