A video that shows police nabbing some people and thrashing them with batons is being shared on social media with a claim that the police had beaten up Muslim men for sloganeering in Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur.
The claim comes in the backdrop of slogans of 'Nara-e-Takbir' (the greatest slogan) and 'Allahu Akbar' (God is great) that were raised by Muslims at Jama Masjid in Saharanpur on the last Friday of the month of Ramzan, 29 April, reportedly after questions by some mediapersons irked them.
However, we found the video is from 6 April 2020, during the nationwide lockdown.
The video showed police personnel thrashing some men in Karampur Chaudhary village in Uttar Pradesh's Bareilly, following an alleged attack on two cops, who had gone to enforce COVID-19 lockdown rules.
CLAIM
The video is being shared along with the claim in Hindi that reads, "कल बाबाजी सहारनपुर को शिमला बना दिये थे।सारी गर्मी निकल गयी थी। अलविदा की नमाज के बाद कुछ लोगों को ज्यादा गर्मी लग गई, लग गए नारे लगाने। फिर बाबा ने सहारनपुर को शिमला कैसे बनाया देख लीजिए।"
(Translation: See, how Babaji (referring to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath) had punished Muslims who raised slogans in Saharanpur, after offering the last prayers of the month of Ramzan.)
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We divided the video into multiple keyframes using InVid, a Google Chrome extension, and followed this up with a reverse image search. This led us to a video uploaded on the YouTube channel of one 'Gazab Samachar', on 6 April 2020.
The description in the video read that the incident was reported from Karampur Chaudhary village, Bareilly district in Uttar Pradesh.
Taking a cue from here, we looked with keywords and found multiple news reports about the incident.
An article published by The Quint on 12 April 2020 read that two policemen in Bareilly had gone to the Karampur Chaudhary village on 6 April 2020 to ensure that people were abiding by the COVID-19 lockdown norms.
However, there was an alleged spat and later a group of villagers came to the Izzatnagar police station and threatened to 'burn it down'.
Speaking about the follow-up action, SP (City) Bareilly, Ravindra Kumar had said “as a retaliatory measure the police went (back) to the village and arrested some persons for trying to hinder work of public servant and flouting Sec 144”.
We also made by a side-by-side comparison of the visuals from The Quint's story from 2020 with that of the viral video.
(Note: Swipe right to see the images)
Screengrab from viral video (L), 2020 video from The Quint (R)
(Photo: Altered by The Quint)
We also found news reports about the incident in NDTV India, News 18 India from 6 April 2020.
NDTV had reported that 42 people were arrested in connection with the case of alleged attack on police team who were trying to enforce lockdown in Izzatnagar.
A First Information Report (FIR) was registered against 150 people for "attacking policemen and trying to set ablaze police outpost," Superintendent of Police, City, Ravindra Kumar had said.
WHAT HAPPENED IN SAHARANPUR ON THE LAST FRIDAY OF RAMZAN?
Next, we searched for news reports about sloganeering in Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur.
According to a report by JanSatta, a Hindi daily of the The Indian Express group, published on 29 April, Muslims who had come to the Jama Masjid to offer namaz (prayers) in Saharanpur had raised slogans of 'Nara-e-Takbir' (the greatest slogan) and 'Allahu Akbar' (God is great).
Reportedly, irked by some questions by the media, the crowd started raising slogans, following which huge police force was deployed in the area.
Hindi daily Amar Ujala had published a photo story about the incident.
Further, on the Twitter account of Saharanpur police, we found a video posted on 29 April.
Speaking about the incident, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Akash Tomar said that the situation was brought under control after Muslims had raised slogans at the Jama Masjid in Saharanpur, after offering namaz, vexed by questions by some media persons.
Clearly, an old video from UP's Bareilly from 2020 is being falsely shared as from Saharanpur police hitting Muslim men for raising religious slogans.
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