An old image showing a police officer trampling a person's face is viral with captions falsely claiming that the picture shows a Delhi police personnel stepping on a protestor.
BOOM found that the viral image is from 2011, and shows former Lucknow Deputy Inspector General of Police DK Thakur stepping on the face of Samajwadi Party leader Anand Bhadauria during a protest by the youth wing of SP against the Mayawati-led government.
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The image has been shared on Facebook and Twitter with captions insinuating that the picture shows a Delhi police official during a recent incident.
A Facebook post sharing the image with a Hindi caption reads 'Delete it as many times as you want, I'll post this again. Watch Delhi police's brutal face. Their souls are dead working at the behest of BJP'.
(Hindi: जितनी बार delet करोगे उतनी बार पोस्ट करुँगी मै, देख लो दिल्ली पुलिस का खौफनाक चेहरा, बीजेपी की दलाली करते करते इनकी आत्मा मर चुकी है)
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Fact Check
A reverse image search of the photo led us to multiple search results pointing to an event from 2011.
According to a 2017 article by Catch News, which carried the viral photo, then SP Youth Wing Lohia Vahini head Anand Bhadauria was protesting against the Bahujan Samaj Party government led by Mayawati when he was pushed to the ground by then DIG DK Thakur, who then stepped on Bhadauria's face.
We also came across a news clipping from a Hindi newspaper which carried two images showing the same scene - with one of them being the viral image - with a caption that read, "First DIG DK Thakur caught a SP worker by his hair and dragged him on the street, and then he trampled him under his shoes."
According to a report by The Indian Express, a public interest litigation was filed by a lawyer in the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court seeking action against Thakur for kicking Bhadauria in the face.
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During the anti-CAA/NRC protests in December 2019, the same image had gone viral as Delhi Police personnel stepping on protestors at the Jamia Millia Islamia University, and was debunked by The Quint.