Imran Khan Tweets Dhaka Clip as Cops’ ‘Pogrom’ Against UP Muslims

The video is from Dhaka, 2013 and it shows police action against a group called Hefazat-e-Islam.

CLAIM

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan shared a video showing police brutally thrashing people and claimed that it’s from Uttar Pradesh. The tweet reads: “Indian police’s pogrom against Muslims in UP.”

The video was circulated on WhatsApp and Facebook with the claim that it shows police action on people protesting against the newly amended citizenship law and National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam.

The claim with which the video has been shared reads: “Assam me NRC lagu, logo ko gharoo se uthana shuru ho chuka hai. Media wale aapko ye nahi dekhayegi, kyun ki wo biik chuki hai ab aapki aur hamari zimmadari hai is video ko ziyada se ziyada share kare.” (NRC has been implemented in Assam, and now people are being picked up from their houses. Media won’t show this to you but it is our responsibility to show it to you).

The Quint received multiple queries about the video on its helpline number.

TRUE OR FALSE?

There is no truth to this claim.

Firstly, the video is from 2013 and it is not from Assam but Dhaka, Bangladesh. It shows police action against a group called Hefazat-e-Islam that had organised a protest in the capital to call for stronger Islamic policies.

As per news reports from 2013, at least 28 people were killed in the violence between the police force and protesters. Shops were torched and trees were torn down as the city turned into a battle ground.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

On conducting a reverse search on one of the key frames of the video we came across a video which was uploaded on Dailymotion in 2013 by a user ‘Kaagoj’. As per the description of this video the ‘Joint forces killed more than 3,000 innocent Hefajot Activist while sleeping at may 6 morning between 2:30 am to 4:00 am’ and the title of the video pointed out that it was from Bangladesh.

We then searched on YouTube with ‘Hefajot activist killed in sleep Dhaka’ and came across a video which was uploaded by Al Jazeera on 14 May 2013. Although the video didn’t have the same visuals, yet one of the frames matched with the frame in the viral video.

Secondly, the police shield in the viral video read ‘RAB’ which we could identify even in the Al Jazeera video.

RAB – Rapid Action Battalion – is an anti-crime and anti-terrorism unit of Bangladesh Police.

We also came across news reports by various publications like BBC and Livemint which had reported on the violence in Dhaka.

Clearly, in this case an old incident has been used to claim that the police is thrashing anti-CAA protesters in Assam.

(Update: The story was updated with Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s claim that the video is from Uttar Pradesh)

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