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| - Fact Check: Baseless claim about soldiers refusing to lathi-charge Agnipath protesters goes viral
A viral video on social media falsely claims to show soldiers refusing to lathi-charge Agnipath protesters.
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India Today Fact Check
As of yet, the Indian army has not been deployed anywhere in the country to control the ongoing protests against the Agnipath scheme.
Following the announcement of the Agnipath Scheme, India has witnessed violent protests. In several places, police have resorted to lathi-charging protesters.
Amid this, a video of soldiers in army trucks being greeted by a crowd has gone viral along with the claim that they refused to lathi-charge the protesters.
Many on Facebook shared the viral video claiming that jawans refused to lathi-charge protesters even at the risk of losing their jobs and that the police should also support the protesters just like them.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) found that the viral claim was baseless. Till the time of writing this report, the Indian army had not been deployed anywhere in the country to quell the ongoing protests against the Agnipath Scheme.
The viral posts are archived here and here.
AFWA Probe
We checked news reports to check if the army has been called in to control the ongoing protests. We could not find any report that said this.
Following this, AFWA reached out to the army's Public Relations department for further clarification. Army PR straight away refuted the viral claim, calling it “fake”.
With the help of a reverse image search, we found a longer version of the viral video posted on several YouTube channels.
While the viral video is only 15 to 20 seconds long, the longer version of the YouTube video shows the crowd stopping army vehicles on the road and greeting soldiers by shaking hands with them and raising pro-army slogans. This video does not show any situation that could prompt actions like lathi-charge.
One YouTube video also showed protests from Himachal Pradesh along with the viral video. Per news reports Himachal Pradesh witnessed protests related to the Agnipath Scheme a few days ago.
Since we could not find any news reports regarding the viral video, we tried to reach out to the YouTube channel for more information. We will update our story accordingly if and when we get a response.
However, since we have been able to confirm that the army has not been deployed to quell protests as of yet, the viral claim about army soldiers refusing to lathi-charge protesters is baseless.
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You can also send us an email at factcheck@intoday.com
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