CLAIMA video that shows a policeman in uniform being thrashed by a group of people, including a woman, is being shared with a claim that the cop was beaten up for issuing a challan. The same claim is being copy-pasted by many social media users, and the video is being shared with this, both on Facebook and Twitter.
Sample these -
Here's a close translation of what is written in the above tweet - "
Bareilly Civil Lines news: A group of Muslims thrashed a policeman was issuing them a challan. This a challenge to law-and-order. This video shows what can happen in India in the future, who will be ruling the country and what will be the future of the citizens. Bitter truth is that India has more threats from within than external ones."
Watch the video here: The same video is being shared by many Facebook users as well.
VIRALITYThe video tweeted by @tyagrajshekhawt, who has nearly 44,000 followers on Twitter, was viewed over 1,800 times and was retweeted by 234 Twitter users. The same video tweeted with the same claim by @ruchiqueen008 was viewed more than 6,800 views and was retweeted more than 940 times.
Expand
On Facebook, the same video tweeted by a user who goes by the name Mahendra Raj Singh last Tuesday garnered over 61,000 views. The video has been doing rounds on social media platforms with this fake claim for some time now.
TRUTHIt is true that a group of Muslims, including the woman seen in the video, thrashed a policeman but the incident did not happen in Bareilly's Civil Lines area. The incident was reported on August 27 from Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad.
The claim that the Uttar Pradesh cop was thrashed for issuing a challan is also untrue. The group seen in the video beat up the policeman after he tried to settle a brawl outside a
State Bank of India branch in Ghaziabad's Loni Border.
VERIFICATION AND METHODOLOGYThe copy-pasted claim in the tweets and Facebook posts gave Times Fact Check a hunch that it is untrue. We noticed a black Innova car in the video which had "Dial 100" written on it. This indicated that the incident happened somewhere in Uttar Pradesh.
Since the claim is that the incident happened in Bareilly, Times Fact Check contacted Bareilly Police but learned that no such incident was reported from their jurisdiction. We then contacted different police stations in Uttar Pradesh, starting from Noida and Ghaziabad.
The media cell of the Loni Border police station confirmed that the incident was reported in their jurisdiction. They directed us to a tweet made by the official Twitter handle of Ghaziabad Police. The tweet had a video in which Vaibhav Krishna, SSP Ghaziabad, could be seen giving a clarification about the same incident.
Here is the tweet - Loni Border Police also shared a press note issued on August 27, 2018 about the incident.
Times Fact Check also got in touch with Rojant Tyagi, SHO Loni Border police station, who narrated what exactly transpired that day in front of the State Bank of India branch.
SHO Tyagi said, "A fellow had gone to the branch to get an Aadhaar card made for himself but cut the queue. The guard at the branch objected to this and tried to make the man be in the queue. The man made a ruckus and tried to get hold of the guard's gun. The guard complained about the unruly behaviour of the man to a police constable standing outside the branch. The policeman intervened, took the man outside the branch and warned him. The man left the scene but returned with his sister, the woman seen in the video. They then thrashed the policeman."
Tyagi also said that an FIR was filed at the Loni Border police station after a complaint was filed by the SBI branch manager, and that the accused were arrested. "They are still in prison," Tyagi said.
Times Fact Check could not trace the video beyond August 27, 2018. We found the same video was tweeted by Twitter user @interceptors on August 27 with the same information SHO Tyagi shared with us, and had tagged both Ghaziabad Police and UP Police.
VERDICTTimes Fact Check has found that the claim that a group of Muslims thrashed a Bareilly policeman for issuing them a challan is absolutely fake.