A video of a van rickshaw puller getting thrashed by a police officer while moving his loaded cart has been shared on social media platforms falsely claiming that it shows police brutality in poll-bound Gujarat.
BOOM found that the video is not from Gujarat and shows an incident happened in Bihar's Patna district.
A police officer, in the video, can be seen thrashing a van rickshaw puller while controlling traffic in a busy road. The action comes amid a situation when the van puller was struggling to move ahead with his loaded cart. Several internet users took social media platforms to call out the action of the policeman and compared it with the treatment given to the political leaders.
A Bharatiya Janata Party stronghold, Gujarat is seeing intense campaigning from both the ruling party and the new entrant to the state Aam Aadmi Party. Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a 50 kilometre long road show and several rallies in the state accompanied by Amit Shah and other BJP leaders.
The Gujarati caption with the video translates to, "When sir comes, the laborers and poor people will be betrayed???? Such BJP people are coming and if a poor man is coming to beat him like this, then we should not give power to such people by voting. By voting against the dictatorship of BJP such people have to be removed from power and only then a safe Gujarat will be established."
(Original Text in Gujarati: સાહેબ આવે એટલે મજૂર અને ગરીબ માણસો ને ધોકા ખાવાના???? આવા ભાજપીયા લોકો આવતા હોય અને જો એક ગરીબ માણસ ને આવી રીતે માર મારવા આવતો હોયતો આવા લોકોને મત આપી ને આપણે આવા લોકો સતા નથી સોંપવી. ભાજપ ના તાનાશાહી વિરુદ્ધ મતદાન કરીને આવા લોકો ને સતા માંથી કાઢી જ મુકવા પડશે અને ત્યારે જ એક સુરક્ષિત ગુજરાત ની સ્થાપના થશે.)
Click here to view the post.
Click here to view the post.
Fact Check
BOOM observed the video closely and noticed an advertisement hoarding mentioning "Patna" present on the road in one of the frames from the viral video.
We also found similarities in the police uniform when compared it with Bihar police who were managing traffic on the road.
Taking a cue, we searched for "Bihar Police" and came across a tweet from journalist Anand Singh carrying the same video uploaded on November 26, 2022. Singh called out the action of the policemen on Twitter and tagged official handle of the Bihar police to inform the officials about such incident.
He added that he witnessed the incident at Rajendra Nagar in Bihar's Patna district.
Singh wrote, "Dear Bihar Police can you justify this act of your men in uniform? This happened infront of my eyes at Rajendranagar Bahdurpur Bridge in Patna just few minutes ago. When I asked, why they beat the rickshawpuller, your men were more keen to know who we are and why we filmed?"
Click here to view the tweet.
