A two-year old video of youngsters brandishing swords during a bike rally has been revived with claims that it is a recent incident where police personnel prevented a riot from happening in Assam.
BOOM found that the video is from August 2020 when youngsters in Tinsukia district of Assam conducted a bike rally with swords as part of an astra pooja (worship of arms) organised by the Bajrang Dal.
Recently, several states including the capital Delhi saw communal violence during Ram Navami with stone pelting and sloganeering. The video is being shared in the same backdrop.
The 2 minute 51 seconds video shows a bike rally with riders brandishing swords chanting slogans and then ends with police personnel attempting to stop the rally.
The video has been shared on Facebook with a claim in Hindi that translates to, "Police administration will end hooliganism in one day whenever they want.. We salute such police officers who work hard to control riots and do not let riots happen."
(Original text in Hindi: पुलिस प्रशासन जब चाहेगी गुंडागर्दी 1 दिन में खत्म कर डालेगी .. ऐसे पुलिस ऑफिसर को हम सेलूट करते हैं जो दंगा नियंत्रण करने के लिए मेहनत करते हैं और दंगे फसाद नहीं होने देते)
Link to Facebook posts here and here.
The video has been widely shared on Facebook with the same claim by several users.
Fact Check
We noticed that the video has the logo EM and shows the location written in text as, 'Tinsukia, Assam'.
BOOM ran a keyword search for 'Youth swords during bike rally Assam' on YouTube and found an extended video of 3 minute 21 seconds uploaded on October 27, 2020 by news outlet East Mojo.
The logo EM also matches the news outlet's logo. East Mojo's report on YouTube was titled, "Assam youths brandish swords during bike rally; one admits to be member of Bajrang Dal"
We found several news stories on it by North East based outlets including a web portal Insidene which is its story on October 26, 2020 said, "40-50 youths carried out a bike rally by carrying swords in hand to participate in "astra poojan" organised by the 'Bajrang Dal.
This rally soon grabbed the attention of the authorities who stopped the youngsters and arrested four people. According to media reports one of the members was said to have links to the Bajrang Dal. A report published by Assam Times also carried the image of a screengrab from the viral video.
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