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| - Fact Check: Scripted video of police atrocities in Pakistan passed off as Kashmir
A video has surfaced over the internet which shows a few men with black t-shirts, with 'POLICE' written on them, and faces covered assaulting women and children and ransacking a house.
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India Today Fact Check
This is a fake video from Sindh, Pakistan.
Since the government abrogated Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir, many videos have been doing the rounds on social media claiming to portray the situation in the Valley.
One such video shows a few men with black t-shirts and faces covered assaulting women and children and ransacking a house. The men, with 'POLICE' written on their backs and firearms slung over their shoulders, are seen wielding sticks.
Facebook user "Mudassir Jameel" posted the video on August 23 and claimed it is from Kashmir. Along with the video, he wrote a post in Hindi that can be translated to, "Thousands of Kashmiris were martyred and we stood with them. Kashmiri girls died and we stood with them. Their honour was violated and we stood with them. Sisters and daughters of Kashmir were traded and we stood with them. I want to ask, whether we are standing dead or alive."
The truth
The post has been shared more than 6,300 times till the filing of this story. The archived version of the post can be seen here.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found the claim to be misleading. The viral video is not from Kashmir but Sindh province of Pakistan. According to Sindh police, it was a fake video made viral to defame them.
Why the video seemed suspicious
Most people believed the video to be from Kashmir and expressed shock at police atrocities’ towards women and children. Twitter handle @Zarinabano_ also posted the same video and slammed the government.
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pic.twitter.com/mKlGZq3Evw Zarina Bano (@ZarinaBano_) August 25, 2019
Some, however, doubted the authenticity of the video and claimed that the men are just acting like police and are not real cops. In fact, upon closely observing the actions of these 'policemen’, one can see that some of them look quite amateurish. Some people also commented that these were Pakistani policemen.
How we found the truth
Upon using a combination of search words like "acting scene spg commando pakistan police", we found the same video on YouTube published on May 6, 2019 with the caption, "Sindh Police attack on innocent Women at Sindh | Pakistan."
The same video was also posted by another user on YouTube called "Earth Sagar" on May 5. Since the police action in the video appeared to be too flimsy to be believed as a real raid by a professional police force, we dug deeper.
We looked for the video on Facebook with a combination of keywords in Urdu. It yielded results. A Facebook user called "English Pathan" posted the same video on May 6, 2019, with some details in Urdu.
The loose translation of this post indicates that the viral video is fake and rumours are being circulated against Sindh’s Jamshoro police. We now looked for "jamshoro police+viral video" and found a tweet posted by Sindh police on May 11, 2019.
It had posted a news clip of Pakistani channel "Aap News" and clarified that the video of the men in police uniform raiding a house is fake. This was to malign Sindh police in general and Jamshoro police in particular. "Aap News" broadcast the viral video and reported on the same clarification.
Few Days back a video was made viral on Social media in which People in police uniform were shown torturing women while raiding a house.This video proved fake and it was designed to malign Sindh Police in general and Jamshoro Police in particular.#Sindhpolicedmc pic.twitter.com/QbQAY2CqKF Sindh Police (@sindhpolicedmc) May 11, 2019
Conclusion
Pakistani media outlet "Dawn" published the same news with more details on May 12, 2019. According to this report, four policemen and a civilian were arrested for uploading fake videos, showing women being tortured by uniformed men.
The "Dawn" reported that Jamshoro SSP Tauqir Mohammad Naeem confirmed this in a press conference at Bhan Syedabad police station. Among the men in the video, four of the uniformed suspects turned out to be policemen and the other four impersonators.
Therefore, it can be said that this viral video has nothing to do with Kashmir.
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