2016 Video Of Cops Thrashing Protesters Revived
The video is from 2016 when protesters were beaten up by Delhi Police for demonstrating against the suicide of Rohith Vemula.
A 2016 video of Delhi Police thrashing demonstrators has resurfaced after the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) triggered protests across the country.
BOOM found that the video is from January, 2016, when students were protesting against PhD scholar Rohith Vemula's death; and it is not related to the CAA. Delhi Police and Uttar Pradesh Police have been drawing flak for its treatment of protesters demanding the scrapping of the Citizenship law.
The 19 second long clip was tweeted by All India Congress Committee's national secretary Dheeraj Gurjar with a misleading narrative in the wake of the CAA protests. The tweet was captioned as, "Who are the people with the police, who are beating up women so brutally? Is this the way Modi government respects women?"
(Original text in Hindi: ''पुलिस के साथ ये कौन लोग है जो महिलाओं को बुरी तरह से मार रहे है? क्या इसी तरह मोदी जी की सरकार महिलाओं का सम्मान करती है?'')
पुलिस के साथ ये कौन लोग है जो महिलाओं को बुरी तरह से मार रहे है? क्या इसी तरह मोदी जी की सरकार महिलाओं का सम्मान करती है? pic.twitter.com/L3jR2fr4OF
— Dheeraj Gurjar (@dgurjarofficial) January 1, 2020
Viral on Facebook as Lucknow
The video is also viral on Facebook, where netizens have identified it as an incident from Lucknow. The video has been doing the rounds with the caption, "The video is being said to be from Lucknow and it is shared from there. Brutality inflicted on protesting boys and girls can be clearly seen." (Original text in Hindi: ''वीडियो कथित रूप से लखनऊ का बताया और शेयर किया गया है, प्रदर्शन करने वाले लड़के और लड़कियों पर पुलिस अत्याचार साफ़ देखा जा सकता है'')
The Uttar Pradesh Police rubbished the false claims through their official Twitter handle.
उक्त वीडियो में दिख रहे पुलिसकर्मी उत्तर प्रदेश पुलिस से सम्बन्धित नहीं हैं।#UPPAgainstFakeNews
— UP POLICE (@Uppolice) December 30, 2019
Fact Check
BOOM ran a reverse image search on the key frames from the video and found that the video is neither related to the anti-CAA protests nor is it from Uttar Pradesh.
We were directed to the same video that was used in an ABP news bulletin in January 2016. According to the report, the video is from Delhi where protesters were thrashed outside the RSS headquarters, when they were demonstrating against the suicide of Hyderabad-based Rohith Vemula.
Vemula, a PhD scholar in the University of Hyderabad, committed suicide after being suspended from the varsity on grounds of a complaint lodged by the BJP's student wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). Vemula's stipend of Rs 25,000 was also stopped, after he raised issues "under the banner of the Ambedkar Students Association (ASA). His death triggered nationwide student protests.
The video was described as, "Delhi police brutally assaults female protesters demanding justice in Rohith Vemula case"
A report published on 2 February 2016 by Indian Express also corroborated the events of the video.
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