A video showing a woman getting injured during an altercation with a policeman has gone viral with a claim stating that a Delhi Police personnel shot at the mother of a Muslim youth because the youth’s bike hit the cop’s car.
However, we found there was no communal angle in the incident. According to the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Rohini, Pramod Kumar Mishra, the policeman was there to resolve a fight that took place between two families over parking.
CLAIM
The caption viral with the video read, “दिल्ली पुलिस ने की क्रूरता की हद पार गाड़ी से थोड़ा लगने पर मुस्लिम युवक के माँ पर चला दी गोली!!!”
[Translation: Delhi Police crosses the limits of cruelty, shoots at the mother of a Muslim youth when their bike hit his car.]
The video was shared by many users on Facebook and received several thousand views.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We extracted the keyframes from the video using the InVID Google Chrome extension and then conducted a reverse image search on some of the keyframes. We found that the video was shared nearly 10 days ago.
In the comments section of that tweet, we found a link to a Hindustan Times article that had details about the incident.
According to the report, “A woman was shot in her foot when a beat constable, trying to settle a parking dispute in outer Delhi’s Rohini, fired four rounds to the ground, one of which ricocheted off and hit her.”
The report further said that the policeman was allegedly being manhandled by the woman and her family and had to fire the shots under duress.
We reached out to DCP Rohini, Pramod Kumar Mishra, who gave us the details of the incident. “This incident is from 25 November and there was no communal angle involved in this,” he told The Quint.
According to a police release, Constable Punit Sharma was attending to a call from a woman identified as Vandana, who said that entry to the house of her senior citizen parents was blocked because of the way their neighbours had parked their vehicles.
Vandana’s neighbours and their relatives, the police claims, began arguing with Sharma when he reached the location and started threatening the constable. DCP Mishra said that they started fighting with the policeman and claimed they tried to snatch the constable's phone, car keys and his service pistol.
“During the scuffle, the constable fired four rounds at the ground. One of the shots deflected after hitting the ground and hit the 40-year-old Madhu’s toe. She was taken to the hospital and was released after a small surgery,” DCP Mishra said in the release.
DCP Mishra claimed that Sharma escaped from the spot and reached the KNK Marg police station. Upon his complaint, a First Information Report (FIR) was filed against the Vandana’s neighbours for deliberately trying to obstruct public servant in the discharge of his duty.
We spoke with constable Punit Sharma who corroborated the details shared to us by DCP Mishra. We also independently verified that the incident was over a parking dispute and there was no communal angle to it.
Evidently, the viral video attempted to create a false narrative and bring a communal angle into the incident when there was none. The woman who was injured in the scuffle with the Delhi Police constable was not a Muslim woman.
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