CLAIM
A video which shows policemen shooting civilians has been doing the rounds on the Internet. The claim with which the video has been shared is that despite the government insisting that there has been no shooting in Kashmir, civilians are being shot by the police.
The video has been shared by multiple users on Twitter. One user, though, added a caveat that the video could be old or recent but it shows police firing “straight bullets on unarmed civilians who are out on streets against violation of the human rights in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.”
The same video was shared by a Twitter user who goes by the name of ‘Ali Keskin’ and has over 5,02,000 followers. However, the video was later taken down.
TRUE OR FALSE?
The video is neither recent nor from Kashmir. It actually dates back to 2017 and is from Jharkhand, showing a mock drill by Khunti police.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
On breaking down the video into several key frames using the Invid Google Chrome extension, we came across a video which was uploaded by a user on Youtube.
The video was uploaded on 1 November 2017. The user had suggested that the video was a part of a training mock drill by the Khunti police in Jharkhand.
On watching the entire video, we confirmed the same as the police can be heard making an announcement of it being a mock drill and for the Khunti police, if they were to face a similar situation.
LOOK FOR RED FLAGS
Further, multiple red flags are evident in the video, making clear that it is not a real incidence of shooting but a staged video.
1. The crowd in the video is standing on both the sides of the road while the police is shooting. The crowd looks organised and doesn’t move. In the case of a real shooting incident, there is ought to be chaos.
2. Secondly, when the police fires at the protesters, smoke doesn’t come out of their guns but from somewhere else. (Around 00:05 seconds)
3. Third, as soon as the protesters are shot down, the rest of the protesting crowd disperses and the police takes a casual stance. In a real situation, the police might run behind the protesters or try to catch them.
4. Right from the beginning, you can hear people giggling and talking.
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