A video of policemen roughing up illegal encroachers in Jaipur, Rajasthan has resurfaced with a false claim that the footage is from Assam, where the National Register of Citizens (NRC) has resulted in eviction of people from their homes.
The video shows policemen dragging men and women as they resist and look for cover.
The 21 second long viral footage has been captioned as, "NRC started in Assam. They have begun evicting people from their homes. The media doesn't show it, they are being sold so it is our responsibility now to share this video." The video is viral on Facebook with the NRC narrative.
According to a report in the Hindu, the NRC for Assam was published on August 31 last year and excluded 19,06,657 people. A total of 3,11,21,004 names were included out of 3,30,27,661 applicants.
The same footage is doing the rounds on Instagram as well.
Fact Check
BOOM was able to ascertain that the video is not from Assam, as the insignia seen on the police uniform did not match that of Assam Police's.
We then broke the video into key frames and ran a reverse image search on Yandex, a Russian search engine. We were directed to the same video that was uploaded to Twitter on August 2 last year. The user identified that the incident happened in Jaipur, Rajasthan.
वायरल वीडियो:: ये है हमारी #Police #Jaipur #Jda Police का यह वीडियो जरूर देख ले. @ashokgehlot51 @SachinPilot @RajGovOfficial pic.twitter.com/V5wC6JHXEH
— Surendra Bagwara Suri (@surendrasuri) August 2, 2019
Upon a custom ranged time filter and a relevant keyword search, we were then led to another tweet featuring the same video. According to the description of the tweet, the incident occurred in Samriya Road, Kanota (Jaipur), where police demolished illegal constructions.
370 धारा पर लोग मोदी मोदी चिल्ला रहे है और पूरे भारत मे दलितों के , गरीबो और आदिवासियों के घर तोड़े जा रहे हैं ज़मीनों पर कब्जा किया जा रहा है !
— Bharat Prabhat Party (@sarchana1016) August 7, 2019
यह वीडियो सामरिया रोड कानोता जयपुर की है ! पुलिस Jcp मशीन लाकर घर तोड़ रही हैं !इन पुलिस बालो को तुरन्त नौकरी से बर्खास्त किया जाए ! pic.twitter.com/7Nm2wggJ2C
In fact, Jaipur Police replied to the same tweet, with a news report from Hindi daily Patrika. According to the article, the video is part of an anti-encroachment drive that was initiated by the Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) in August last year. Cops demolished walls which were illegally built beyond the permissible limit, under the drive. The article also stated that people tried to disrupt the drive by bringing women to the forefront.
— Jaipur Police (@jaipur_police) August 9, 2019