CLAIM
A video of Trupti Desai, social activist and founder of NGO Bhumata Brigade, is going viral with the claim that she was caught illegally buying liquor during the lockdown and was detained by the police.
This particular tweet had 6.1K likes and 3.6K retweets at the time this story was published. In the video, Desai, who is carrying what seems to be a string on liquor bottles, can be seen being escorted by some police officers. The police takes away the bottles from her hand and then she is put into a police van and taken away.
Some on Twitter also said that she had been caught bootlegging the liquor.
An archived version of this tweet can be seen here.
Many others shared the same video on Twitter.
People on Facebook and YouTube also shared the video.
TRUE OR FALSE?
The video is being circulated with a fake claim. It is actually an old video of Desai from September 2019 and she was not detained for bootlegging or trying to buy liquor illegally. The video has nothing whatsoever to do with the lockdown.
WHAT WE FOUND
On going through the tweets, we found that some Twitter users had said that the video was not recent but was from when Desai had tried to garland Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis with liquor bottles.
On searching for news reports, we came across some from September 2019 which spoke about the incident.
According to a report by The Times of India, Desai, who had been demanding liquor-free Maharashtra, was detained by police officials in Pune, after she threatened to garland Fadnavis with a necklace of liquor bottles. She was therefore detained by city police officials from her Sahakarnagar residence in order to maintain law and order in the city.
The incident reportedly took place ahead of the CM’s “Mahajanadesh Yatra” in Pune in September.
We also found more news reports about the incident. An Aaj Tak report from 15 September 2019 said the same thing and also carried a photo of the incident, which matches with the viral visuals.
We also found a Sakal Times article about the same incident.
Therefore, it is clear that an old, unrelated video of Desai has been revived now with a different narrative amid the lockdown to contain coronavirus.
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