A video clip of a Railway Police Force (RPF) constable taking bribe from a woman in Gujarat has resurfaced and is being falsely linked to the recent lockdown and migrant labourers' exodus across the country. The video has been shared with a caption purportedly claiming that cops are taking bribes from migrant laborers walking on the railway tracks.
BOOM found out that the original incident is from Gujarat's Surat division, and involved an RPF cop who was demanding bribe from a group of women who sold goods illegally. The constable was later dismissed.
The video is being shared with a misleading caption at a time when migrant labourers have resorted to walking back to their homes from various parts of the country due to the ongoing lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19.
The minute-long clip shows a uniformed policeman demanding money from a group of women. None of them are wearing masks in the viral footage.
A Hindi caption with the clip reads 'The men of India's railway minister demanding money from helpless labourers for walking on the tracks. Be ashamed. Labourer = Helpless'.
(Hindi: देश के रेलवे मंत्री के आदमी मजबूर -मजदुरो से रेलवे की पटरी पे चलने का भाड़ा लेते हुए...।।कुछ तो शर्म करो।।।। मजबूर==मजदूर)
Watch the viral video below and access its archived versions here and here.
The Bengali caption with the post shared below translates to 'See the illegal way how railway cops are extracting money from migrant labourers'.
The clip has also been retweeted by Ankit Lal, social media and IT strategist of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) with the caption "Gujarat model." Click here to view the archive of the tweet.
The video was also shared on some Twitter handles and later deleted.
The Hindi caption with the video that was viral on Twitter, translates to '#LockdownFascism Thieves, at least spare the laborers. What's going on in this country?'
The same video was shared, and later deleted by D Roopa, IGP, Railways. Roopa later deleted her tweet once she learnt it was an old video.
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Fact Check
BOOM reverse searched a keyframe from the viral video and found a tweet from July, 2019 which had shared the same video. The video was captioned as, "RPF jawans in Surat dismissed from service after his video taking bribe from bootlegger women goes viral."
Taking cue from the tweet, we did a keyword search and found the same video uploaded on another website on July 18, last year, with more details.
According to the report, the video was shot on Western Railway's Surat section and had gone viral few months after the actual incident. The constable seen in the video - Jaikant - was dismissed from his services after the video surfaced on internet.
An excerpt from the report reads, "The video shot on WR's Surat section is reported to be a few months old but went viral on social media only a few weeks ago. Taking note of the clip, WR has now dismissed the RPF constable. In the short video, the women can be seen arguing about already having paid another cop Rs. 500. While the constable tries to convince them that the cop was a GRP man and not one from his team, the women grudgingly collect money to pay the RPF constable, telling the cop that they'll be back in a couple of days."
