Old Video of Panchkula Arson Shared as Police Brutality in Kashmir
The video is originally from Panchkula violence which broke out ahead of Ram Rahim’s conviction in 2017.
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CLAIM
A video which shows police beating people is being shared on Facebook with a claim that it shows police brutality in Kashmir.
The claim with the video reads, “Dhykho khasmir kis trah zolm ho rha h...” [Translation: “See how the people in Kashmir are being brutalised”.]
Further, the audio is that of a wailing women who appeals to the people to share the video with as many people as possible.
An archived version of the video can be seen here.
The video has been viewed over 3 million times and has been shared over 1,75,000 times.
TRUE OR FALSE?
First of all, the video is not from Kashmir but Panchkula in Haryana.
In 2017, self styled godman Gurmeet Ram Rahim was convicted in a rape case following which his enraged followers went on a rampage. As many as 29 people, including Dera followers, reportedly died in the mob violence, and nearly 250 were injured.
Further, the audio heard in the viral video has been added separately as the original file doesn’t have the same audio.
WHAT DID WE FIND OUT
On breaking the video down into several key frames and conducting a reverse image search, using Yandex search engine, we found that the video is as old as 2017 and is from Panchkula in Haryana.
On looking up on Google, we came across multiple reports which had reported on the violence that broke out in Panchkula ahead of the conviction of Ram Rahim. However we couldn’t find the viral video in any of the reports.
The Quint also got in touch with a local journalist who had covered the violence to verify the origin of the video. The journalist confirmed that the video was indeed from Panchkula, shot ahead of Ram Rahim’s conviction.
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