A video showing a man wearing a BJP scarf throwing stones at a gathering has surfaced with a false claim that it shows moments which led to the violent clashes in Haryana's Gurugram.
BOOM found that the video is not related to the recent clashes happening in Gurugram. The video is present online since 2022 and from Telangana.
Haryana's Nuh district including some sectors of Gurugram witnessed a series of clashes on August 1 causing six deaths and leaving multiple houses and shops severely damaged. The communal clashes first broke out following a rumour that said the absconding murder accused and cow vigilante Monu Maneser would attend a Hindu religious procession organised in Nuh district, reported Hindustan Times. The police have arrested several protestors linked to the violence.
The video was tweeted with the caption, "A video coming out from the Gurugram voilance about how to start a voilance. These morons should be punished very hard as they are playing with the emotions of the peoples and leads to a clash between two factions." (sic) The video has been edited to include a text in Hindi, "The start of riots. Such men should be hanged." The video shows a man stealthily picking up a stone and throwing it at what appears to be a religious gathering. He is later attacked by people from the crowd.
Click here to view the tweet.
Click here to view the tweet.
Fact Check
BOOM performed a reverse image search on one of the keyframes from the viral video and found several posts from August, 2022 carrying the same video.
One such tweet from August 24, 2022, contains a Telugu caption that translates to, "They are the ones who throw stones. They are the ones who provoke people! This is the politics of BJP."
Click here to view the tweet.
Other than this, we noticed that a vehicle in the video is carrying a number plate with the initials 'TS'. It is to be noted that the registration code for vehicles in Telangana is 'TS'.
Also, a portion of some Telugu text "దివ" on a board can be noticed at 0:05 seconds time mark in the video. We further spotted a direction board that mentions Suryapeta in Telugu, a city 58 km from the location where the video was recorded.
India Today on August 25, 2022, published an article reporting about similar incidents which took place in Telangana over BJP MLA T Raja Singh’s remarks against the Prophet Muhammed.
An excerpt from the report states, "On Monday, Hyderabad - at the epicenter of the outrage - simmered as protesters began gathering. By Tuesday, the mob was on the streets. Effigies were burnt, ‘sar tan se juda’ slogans were raised and T Raja Singh was subsequently arrested. The MLA, however, was soon granted bail."
The News Minute carried some visuals of the protest. The reporting can be seen below. BOOM however could not independently verify if the video is from the same time.