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India
Old Video Of Muslim Man Being Brutally Beaten By Cops During Covid Shared With Misleading Communal Claim
|Journalist CJ Werleman shared this video and wrote a caption which reads, "Watch Hindutva radicalized cops brutally assault an elderly Muslim man." The Logical Indian fact check team verified the viral claim.
A video of an elderly Muslim man being thrashed by cops is going viral on social media claiming the viral video shows how cops are targetting Muslims. This comes after communal clash erupted in Uttar Pradesh after the controversial remark made by the BJP ex-spokesperson Nupur Sharma on Prophet Mohammad. This resulted in violent clashes between the two religious groups, with the arrest tally currently at around 50.
Journalist CJ Werleman shared this video and wrote a caption which reads, "Watch Hindutva radicalized cops brutally assault an elderly Muslim man."
Muslim news outlet Milli Gazette also shared this video and wrote, "Looks like men in uniform have some personal score to settle."
It is being widely shared on Facebook and Twitter with a similar claim.
Claim:
An elderly Muslim man was thrashed by cops during the recent communal clash amid prophet row.
Fact Check:
The Logical Indian fact check team verified the viral claim and found it to be false. The viral video is from 2020.
During the initial investigation, we watched the comments on CJ Werlemans's tweet and found a tweet done by Bareilly Police mentioning that the viral video is from 2020 during the Covid lockdown. The caption of the tweet reads, "Concerned vedio is from 2020 when complete lockdown was implemented.unlawful gathering tried to misbehave with police and police used mild force to disperse the crowd so that COVID infection would not spread."
In further investigation, we did an open keyword search and found the similar footage in a report of News Nation dated 07 April 2020. The title of the video report reads, "Uttar Pradesh: Group Attacks Police In Bareilly, Several Injured." According to the report, several people attacked on a police team when Police tried to enforce a lockdown in Karampur Chaudhary village in UP's Bareilly district. Additional Superintendent of Police Abhishek Varma got injured during this attack. Later, police cracked down on the violators and took some people into custody, booked them under Section 144 of CrPC for allegedly attacking two policemen.
Many other media outlets like TV9, Republic, The Indian Express, and ANI also reported the same.
It is evident from our investigation that the viral video of cops thrashing an elderly Muslim man is not from the recent communal clash. The viral video is from 2020 when police thrashed people for violating Covid rules and for allegedly attacking policemen. Hence, the viral claim is misleading.
If you have any news that you believe needs to be fact-checked, please email us at factcheck@thelogicalindian.com or WhatsApp at 6364000343.
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