BJP IT Cell head Amit Malviya shared an old video of Aam Aadmi Party workers assaulting a man who slapped Arvind Kejriwal during a rally, falsely claiming that the man was lynched.
BOOM found that the man who slapped Kejriwal had survived the assault by AAP workers, following which he was taken to the hospital for treatment.
Malviya tweeted out the 1 minute 43 second footage with the caption: "AAP workers indulge in brutality, lynch a man in Arvind Kejriwal's road show, who remains a mute spectator, doesn't intervene, goes around his program as if nothing is happening... Is this man even fit to be in public life let alone occupy a public office?"
Searching with parts of the caption on Facebook revealed that the same video is viral on the social media platform with the exact same caption.
Hours before Malviya tweeted the video out, BOOM observed that it was also being shared by others with similar captions.
Fact Check
Upon scrutinizing Malviya's tweet, we found that the video was previously shared by user Amit Raina (@rainaamit), who had tweeted the same video out on May 8, 2019. This proves that the video is from last year, and is not related to the ongoing campaign rallies ahead of the Delhi elections.
BOOM did a keyword search with relevant keywords on Google, and set the time range from April to May, 2019. This took us to several news reports of an incident that happened on May 4, 2019, where an individual slapped Kejriwal during an AAP rally.
One of the reports by India Today included a video of the event. We compared the India Today video with the one posted by Malviya and found stark similarities, which confirmed that the two footage are of the same event.
Left: India Today's report. Right: Video shared by Amit Malviya. The same man wearing blue checked shirt can be seen.
According to an NDTV report on the same incident, he was later stopped by AAP workers and then thrashed on the spot, after being escorted away by Delhi Police.
Was the person lynched?
An assault can be considered an act of lynching only if the person being assaulted succumbs to his/her injuries. The NDTV report mentioned that the person being thrashed was taken away to a hospital where he was treated for his injuries. Since he survived the attack, it cannot be considered an act of lynching.
According to several news reports, Delhi Police had claimed that the individual was a disgruntled AAP worker. AAP has however contested that claim, and instead alleged that it was the Delhi Police who had planted the individual in the rally.
