Many social media users took to Twitter to claim that one of the students being lathicharged in a recently leaked footage from the Jamia Millia Islamia library is the same man who was seen torching a bike in a CCTV footage on December 15, 2019, in the New Friend's Colony in Delhi, based on the assumption that their clothes are the same. This assumption is factually incorrect; BOOM compared the two footage and found the clothes of the individual to be visually distinctive.
On February 16, 2020, the CCTV footage from the Jamia library was leaked on Twitter by an unofficial Jamia handle. The caption read: "Watch this and realise what kind of trauma and brutality #JamiaMilliaIslamia students faced on the hands of @DelhiPolice. Students studying in library are being attacked and brutalised for no fault of theirs. #JamiaProtests"
The time and date stamp of the CCTV footage revealed that it was shot on December 15, 2019 - a day marked by violence in the neighbouring area of New Friend's Colony, where a bike and a bus were burned by unknown rioters.
Soon after the footage was leaked, Twitter users started comparing this clip to another CCTV footage from the New Friend's Colony area, where a rioter is seen torching a bike.
This clip was shared on December 23, by many users included News18 reporter Saahil Meghnani.
Soon, people started claiming that the same rioter was also seen studying in the Jamia library, and was lathicharged by the police. The entire basis of the claim seemed to be the assumption that they are wearing the same jacket and the same handkerchief to cover their faces.
The following men from the two footage were compared to claim that the clothes and the handkerchief are matching:
Left: CCTV footage from New Friend's Colony, New Delhi, December 15, 2019, 3:51 pm. Right: CCTV footage from Jamia library, December 15, 2019, 6:08 pm.
Fact Check
BOOM opened up the two footage for comparison, and found that the assumption that their clothes are similar to be misleading.
Also Read: False: Student Injured In Jamia Shooting Also Seen In CCTV Footage
By comparing the photos side-by-side, we found two distinct dissimilarities in the photo:
- The rioter is wearing a jacket, while the Jamia student is wearing a hoodie.
- The rioter's jacket has red and white stripes on his arms, while the Jamia student's hoodie has only white stripes on his arms.
Even the handkerchiefs worn by the two were distinct. While the rioter had a blue handkerchief, the one being worn by the Jamia student was white.
The student in the video was later identified by BBC and The Quint as Mohammed Salman Khan, who's a PhD student at Jamia. In the video interview to The Quint, Khan was seen wearing the same hoodie. It is also clearly visible that there are no red stripes on the arms, as seen on the jacket of the rioter.
BOOM got in touch with Khan, who claimed that he was using a handkerchief to protect himself from the tear gas shelling going on in the campus earlier. He also claimed that he was in the campus for the past 5 hours, before the library footage was taken.
BOOM could not independently verify his whereabouts during the time of the riot. However, the claim that Khan is the torching a bike in the riot footage based on the assumption that they're wearing the same clothes is false.