A video showing two people bearing arms amid a ruckus, is being widely shared on social media, to claim that people from the Muslim community in Kanpur indiscriminately fired guns during the recent violence that broke out in the city.
This was on the back of the remarks made by suspended Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Nupur Sharma's remarks regarding Prophet Muhammad.
However, the claim is false as the video predates the Kanpur violence.
We found news reports from May 2021, which said that two groups from the same community clashed in Dhaura Tanda in Uttar Pradesh's Bareilly over prices of bovine meat at the local meat shop.
CLAIM
Sudarshan News reporter Santosh Chauhan shared the short clip, claiming that 'jihadis' – a slur used to refer to the Muslim community – in Kanpur were firing weapons to kill people when the police was only using tear gas during the recent violence.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
Using InVID, we divided the video into multiple frames and ran reverse image searches on a few of them. One result led us to a news report dated 12 May 2021 by Amar Ujala, which carried a still from the short clip.
(Note: Swipe right to view both photos.)
The report was published in May 2021.
(Source: Amar Ujala/Altered by The Quint)
According to this report, two groups from the same community got into a fight over the price of bovine meat in the Dhaura Tanda area of Uttar Pradesh's Bareilly. One of the two parties involved brought their weapons out, causing panic in the market.
The report identified a member of one party as Jaleesh Ahmed from the Banjara community, and the other as one Salim Qureshi.
It elaborated that the situation escalated when Ahmed saw his shop's tenant, Qureshi charging high prices for meat, and not reducing them when people from Ahmed's Banjara community opposed it. Qureshi was then asked to vacate the shop, and was thrashed upon refusal.
To support Qureshi, his family members turned up with illegitimate arms and fired into the air.
We also came across a tweet with the same video shared on 9 May 2021, which mentioned that the conflict was over meat. Bareilly Police's verified Twitter account responded to this tweet with a video byte of the police issuing a clarification regarding the matter.
In the video, the police officer is heard saying "two groups from the same community got into a fight over buying meat. The main reason for the conflict was the price of the meat. In this incident, one of the parties fired using illegal weapons."
He added that a case had been registered under the Bhojipura police station in connection with the incident.
Hindi news organisation Aaj Tak also carried a report on the incident.
Evidently, an old video showing conflict over meat prices between two groups from the Muslim community in Bareilly was shared, linking it to the recent violence in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh.
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