An old video of a policeman hitting an elderly Muslim man with a baton as part of a crackdown on lockdown violators, has been shared on Twitter with a false claim that the attack was communally motivated.
BOOM found that the video is from 2020 and there is no communal angle to the incident. The footage shows the police officer dispersing a crowd that violated COVID-19 lockdown norms and attacked two cops who were trying to enforce a lockdown in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh.
CJ Werleman tweeted the video with a caption claiming, "Watch Hindutva radicalized cops brutally assault an elderly Muslim man."
Click here to view the tweet.
Muslim newspaper Milli Gazette also quoted the tweet with a caption which reads as, "Looks like men in uniform have some personal score to settle".
Click here to view the tweet.
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Fact Check
Bareilly Police replied to CJ Werleman's tweet refuting the claim. The police said the video was from 2020 and showed police using "mild force" against an unlawful gathering that had assembled despite a complete lockdown being enforced.
BOOM did a reverse image search on one of the key-frames from the viral video and found the same footage in an OTV video report published on April 7, 2020.
The caption with the video states 'COVID19 Lockdown- Cops In Action Mode After Violators Ransack Police Station In UP'.
Taking a cue, we performed a related keyword search and found a Times Now news bulletin published on April 6, 2020, carrying the same video.
"The police force had asked about 20 people flouting prohibitory orders to disperse, the crowd instead of listening attacked the police, many cops sustained injuries," the description of the video states.
According to ANI, "Bareilly Police on Monday took some people into custody and booked them under Section 144 of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC ) for allegedly attacking two policemen when they were trying to enforce lockdown in Karampur Chaudhary village under Izzatnagar Police Station."
Bareilly City SP Ravindra Kumar had then told the media that a mob of around 200 people created ruckus at the police station. He further added that IPS Abhishek Verma and some other police officers suffered injures due to the attack.
A statement from Bareilly police was also issued about the incident on its official twitter handle at that time.
Click here to view the tweet.
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