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A 15-second video showing the driver of an army truck shaking hands with a group of people is going viral on social media platforms amid the widespread protests against the centre’s Agnipath scheme. Those who shared the video claim that the “5 trucks” of army personnel refused to lathicharge the protesters even at the cost of their jobs. Newschecker found the claim to be untrue.
Links to such posts can be found here, here, here and here.
Scores of armed forces aspirants took to the streets to protest against the launch of new defence recruitment policy- Agnipath. Under the new scheme, individuals will be recruited to the armed forces initially for a four-year period. After the completion of the same, 25% will be re-inducted as permanent members of the armed forces and the remaining will be freed without gratuity and pension benefits. Opposition leaders have strongly criticised the scheme and demanded a roll back. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the BJP government “which calls itself nationalist” was “weakening” the armed forces through the ‘Agnipath’ scheme.
Also Read: Did Former CDS General Bipin Rawat Oppose The Agnipath Scheme? Viral Claim Is False
We began our investigation by conducting reverse image search tests on the keyframes of the viral video, but it did not yield any relevant result.
Further, we conducted several searches on Google and YouTube using keywords in Hindi like “इंडियन आर्मी, “ सेना”, “जवान” “जवानों” “ट्रक,” “ गाड़ी,” “फौज,” “ हैंड शेक,” “ हाथ मिलाए”, “आर्मी ट्रक,” “आर्मी गाड़ी,” among others which led us to a video uploaded by YouTube channel ‘CAPTAIN AZAD PHYSICAL ACADEMY ALLHABAD’ on June 17, 2022 with the title which roughly translates to “Boys were delighted to see army trucks on road during the Agnipath agitation.”
We inspected the YouTube video and concluded that the viral clip is a snippet from the same. The longer version of the video starts with a group of men standing on a divider and cheering at official vehicles passing by, before they wave down an approaching army truck, and shake hands with the driver of the truck, while raising pro-army slogans.
We did not find any evidence in the video that suggested any incident of army deployment, or call for lathi charge at the scene as alleged. Contrary to the claim of 5 trucks, we spotted only three. In addition, there were no signs of any barricading, fencing or deployment of any force. As seen in the video, there were no restrictions on vehicular movement on the road either.
Several YouTubers posted the longer version of the video showing the men stopping and greeting army personnel in the truck. You can see such videos here and here.
Though several instances of lathi charge on Agnipath protesters by police were reported, the army was not involved in any of those instances. You can read such reports here, here, and here.
Newschecker also reached out to Indian Army PRO Col Sudhir Chamoli who confirmed to us that the army has not been deployed to curb the ongoing protests. Dismissing the claim, Col Chamoli said that the viral claim “is not correct and the army has not been involved in this (Agnipath protest) so far”.
Viral post, that claims to show Army personnel refusing to lathicharge young men protesting against the Agnipath policy, is false.
Sources
YouTube Video By CAPTAIN AZAD PHYSICAL ACADEMY ALLHABAD, Dated June 17, 2022
Conversation With Army PRO Col Sudhir Chamoli On June 24, 2022
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