The coronavirus lockdown has resulted in difficulties for migrant workers across India with most of them facing problems like hunger, unemployment, and now misinformation. In one such incident, a video from Delhi’s Majnu Ka Tilla area is being shared on social media with a claim that it shows migrant labourers indulging in a robbery because of financial distress.
However, the Delhi Police refuted the claim and said that the miscreants have been identified and arrested and none of them was a migrant worker. They are locals who have a criminal record.
CLAIM
The video, footage from a CCTV camera, shows two men attacking a person from behind to rob him of his belongings. It is being circulated with a message urging people to exercise caution before stepping out of homes at night.
The claim along with the video reads: “Pl don't go out during nights as some labours/migrants /poor people are killing innocent people for Money / Jewellery.. as there is cash crunch in the market ... This kind of incidents are bound to happen in near future very frequently....(sic).”
WHAT WE FOUND
On observing carefully we saw a location tag mentioning ‘Majnu ka Ti’ at the bottom right side of the frame.
Assuming that the location is Majnu Ka Tilla area in Delhi, we conducted a Google search with keywords “Robbery at Majnu ka Tilla, Delhi” and found a tweet by news daily Navbharat Times which carried the same video. While the tweet confirmed that a case of robbery had come to light from Delhi’s Majnu ka Tilla area, it did not mention anything about the involvement of migrant labours.
We were also able to access a tweet by Ravi Dwivedi, a journalist working with Times Group.
Next, we reached out to police officials at the Majnu ka Tilla police station who told The Quint that the incident happened on the night of 28 April when two people attacked an individual and robbed him. Leaving the man in an unconscious state, they ran away from the spot. The accused are locals with a criminal history and have been booked for theft and robbery in the past.
The police denied the involvement of migrants in the case. “The miscreants have been identified and arrested. They are locals who already have a criminal record. Claims around the involvement of migrants are baseless,” they said.
Clearly, an unrelated video is being shared with a false claim to create panic around the migrant crisis.
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