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| - Fact Check: Old video from Mumbai shared as police thrashing lockdown violator in Karnataka
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the claim along with the video to be misleading. This video, from April last year, was taken in Mumbai's Vasai area.
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India Today Fact Check
The video was taken in Mumbai’s Vasai area in April 2020. However, there have been reports of police high-handedness in enforcing the ongoing lockdown in Karnataka.
With Karnataka under full lockdown to control spiralling cases of Covid-19 in the state, there have been reports of police high-handedness in enforcing the curfew.
On social media, a video showing a group of policemen brutally thrashing a man with lathis is being shared with the claim that this is Karnataka police assaulting a man for violating lockdown norms. The video is being shared with the voiceover of a woman, who identified herself as Padma Harish, and who went on to speak about police brutality against the public.
The caption with one such video reads, “Police taking undue advantage of lockdown rules on General Public...Karnataka State Police take action”.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the claim along with the video to be misleading. This video, from April last year, was taken in Mumbai’s Vasai area.
The archived versions of similar posts can be seen here , here and here.
AFWA probe
Using appropriate keywords, we found the same visuals shot from a different angle carried in a “Mumbai Mirror” video report published on April 3, 2020.
WATCH: Vasai Police resorts to lathi-charge after men from Mumbra defy lockdown norms.
Read the full story on https://t.co/kZwi9DC2Q1 pic.twitter.com/ghCbkJwv04 — TOI Plus (@TOIPlus) April 3, 2020
A comparison between the video in circulation and the “Mumbai Mirror” video can be seen below.
“Mumbai Mirror” had also published a detailed story on the incident on April 3.
According to the report , the visuals are from the by-lanes of Koliwada in Vasai area of Mumbai. The lathi charge took place following an alleged attack by the public on a team of policemen and civic officials who had gone to conduct Covid-19 tests at a slum in Vasai.
According to a statement given to “Mumbai Mirror” by Superintendent of Police Gaurav Singh, a group of men from Mumbra were visiting one Azhar Khan at Vasai in April last year. Suspecting that the guests may have been infected with coronavirus as they had attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in New Delhi, local police along with civic staff went to Khan’s house to conduct a test on them.
While the officials were returning, Khan and his guests started bursting crackers. Police went back and asked them to stop as it was in defiance of social distancing norms. According to the report, this later turned into a clash between the police and locals, and cops had to resort to lathi charge. Khan and his friends were booked under different IPC sections along with provisions under the Disaster Management Act, 2005.
The same video without the Kannada voiceover was shared by several social media users in April 2020.
After the video went viral on social media as visuals from Karnataka, Bengaluru police commissioner Kamal Pant tweeted that the incident was from Maharashtra.
According to media reports published on May 12 from Karnataka, Padma Harish , a Congress worker, was arrested for allegedly sharing the fake news. The person speaking in the video has also identified herself as Padma Harish.
Chaotic scenes did break out across Karnataka as police used force to implement the lockdown. There have been reports of police indiscriminately thrashing public and damaging vehicles, and such actions have come under sharp criticism from civil society.
However, it is clear that the video in circulation is a one-year-old clip from Maharashtra and the voiceover in Kannada has been added to it.
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