A video showing a man snatching a flag from a crowd taking out a rally is being shared on social media.
What is the claim?: Users have shared the video to claim that a Muslim man attacked and snatched a saffron flag from the crowd, which was taking out a peaceful rally in Sanoli village in Haryana's Panipat district.
This post had 428.8K views at the time of writing this story.
(Archives of similar claims can be found here and here.)
What is the truth?: Sanoli Police's Station House Office (SHO), Sunil Kumar confirmed to The Quint that there was no communal angle to this incident.
The police mentioned that the man in the video who took the flag from the crowd is sarpanch (village head), Sanjay Tyagi.
The rally was conducted with police permission for Janmashtami celebrations in the village.
How did we find out?: We did a relevant keyword search and came across news reports published on 12 September by Amar Ujala that had reported on this incident from Haryana.
According to the reports, the rally took place for Janmashtami celebrations in Sanoli, Haryana.
It mentioned that this dispute broke out when Bajrang Dal members chanted slogans and waved religious flags while the rally passed through a Muslim-majority area in the village.
What did the police say?: We contacted the Station House Office (SHO), Sunil Kumar of Sanoli Police Station and inquired about the incident.
The officer told The Quint that the Janmashtami rally was taken out on 7 September with police permission.
Kumar said, "It was not a Muslim man taking the flag in the video, rather it was Sanjay Tyagi, the sarpanch (village head) who took the flag away from the crowd."
He also mentioned that both the parties had filed a complaint but the issue had been resolved.
What did the sarpanch say?: The Quint also reached out to Sanjay Tyagi who described the ordeal.
Tyagi, the village head, confirmed that he took the flag away from the crowd.
He said, "When the rally moved towards a Muslim madrasa in the village, some 15 notorious elements of the Bajrang Dal started shouting slogans and waving flags so I took the flag to avoid any trouble and altercations in the village."
Conclusion: A video from Haryana has been shared with a false communal angle which claims that a Muslim man snatched a saffron flag from people during a Janmashtami rally.
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