A video of a police raid at a café in Uttar Pradesh's Agra showing young couples caught being intimate, is viral on social media with misleading and communal claims that Muslim boys were caught luring Hindu girls at a hookah bar in Madhya Pradesh.
BOOM reached out to Agra SSP (Senior Superintendent of Police) Prabhakar Chaudhary, who confirmed that the incident happened at a local cafe; Chaudhary further stated that there is no communal angle to the same.
The video shows policemen barge into an underground section with cabins at a cafe and bust couples being intimate.
The caption with the video reads, "15 boys and 15 girls have been arrested in the hookah bar in Madhya Pradesh where the raid was conducted yesterday. All the girls are from well to do families. Point is all the boys are Muslims and all the girls are Hindus."
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Fact Check
BOOM performed a reverse image search on one of the keyframes from the viral video and found a UP Tak article published on August 12, 2022.
An excerpt from the translated report reads, "Three policemen, who were posted at Hariparvat police station, shot a video of young men and women being intimate during a raid inside a cafe. The young men and women kept pleading but the policemen paid no heed. After this video went viral, the three policemen have been suspended. There was a stir in the city after the video went viral. Questions were raised on the working style of the police. Let us tell you that about 12 days ago, the Hariparvat police raided the cafe. The SSP got information about the viral video related to the case. When the SSP did an investigation, the inappropriate actions of the three policemen came to light."
Hindi news outlets including Dainik Jagran and Amar Ujala also reported about the incident.
Taking a cue from this we reached out to Agra's Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Prabhakar Chaudhary to know the truth behind the communal claim. Speaking to BOOM, Chaudhary said, "The claim is false. There is no communal angle to the incident. We have kept their identities private. "