Fact-Check: 2021 Video From Kashmir Falsely Linked to Agnipath Protests

The video is from 2021 when protesters clashed with the police in Kashmir's Srinagar.

The claim states that the video shows Agnipath protests in Bihar. 

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Amid the ongoing protests over the new Agnipath scheme, a video showing protesters clashing with the police and army personnel is being shared on social media with the claim that it is of protests in Bihar.

The army recruitment scheme, announced by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on 14 June, has been met with violent protests in several states of India, including Bihar, where 60 train coaches have been burnt and property worth about Rs 700 crore has been damaged since June 15.

However, we found that this video is from Kashmir and showed police firing tear gas and warning shots to disperse protesters who had attempted to participate in the Muharram procession in 2021.

Click here to get the live updates on the Agnipath protests.

CLAIM

The video is being shared with the claim that it shows Bihar Police being attacked by Agnipath protestors.

An archive of the post can be seen here.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

More archived links can be seen here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND

Using the InVID WeVerify Google Chrome Extension, we extracted keyframes from the viral video and conducted a reverse image search on some of the keyframes on Google and Yandex.

A Yandex reverse image search result led us to a longer version of the video on Instagram, published on 23 August 2021.

The location in the video was tagged as 'Srinagar, Kashmir.'

The video was posted on 23 August 2021.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Taking this as a cue, we conducted a keyword search on YouTube and found the video published on the channel of the news agency Associated Press' archive.

The 2:55-minute video titled 'Police fire teargas to Muslim mourners in Kashmir' was published on 22 August 2021.

The description read that the video was from 17 August 2021 and that police had fired tear gas and warning shots to disperse Shiite Muslims who attempted to participate in the Muharram procession.

It said that protestors took to the streets in Srinagar and were chanting religious and pro-freedom slogans.

A protestor seen attacking the police personnel can be seen from 1:41-1:45 minutes.

A side-by-side comparison can be seen here.

Viral video (L), screengrab from AP Archive (R).

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Clearly, an old video from Kashmir is being shared on social media with the false claim that it shows the Agnipath protests in Bihar.

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