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| - Fact Check: NOT Nupur Sharma! Video from Rajasthan farmers' protest goes viral as ex-BJP spokesperson's arrest
Amid demands for Nupur Sharma's arrest over her comments on Prophet Muhammad, a video allegedly showing her getting arrested is being widely shared.
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India Today Fact Check
This video is from a June 15 farmers' protest in Churu, Rajasthan. The woman in the video is not Nupur Sharma. She is Bhumi Birmi, a Bharatiya Kisan Union (Non-Political) leader.
Nupur Sharma’s controversial comments on the Prophet Muhammad have led to a number of FIRs and continued demands for her arrest on social media. Amid this, many shared a video claiming that this is exactly what happened.
The video features a small group of women and cops. There are a few versions of this video. One of them features a man in a parallel video proving commentary, where he claimed the viral clip showed Sharma getting arrested after absconding. Another version of the video features just a voiceover that makes similar claims.
The video shows the woman being held by other women as she tries to move ahead towards a barricade. Many policemen were seen in the video.
AFWA found that this video was from a protest held by farmers in Rajasthan’s Churu. The woman seen in the video is Bhumi Birmi, Bhartiya Kisan Union (Non-political) leader, not Nupur Sharma. Archived versions of similar posts can be seen.
AFWA PROBE
While it was reported that the now-suspended Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson asked for a four-week extension to appear before the Kolkata Police owing to alleged threats against her life, there are no reports about her getting arrested.
Subsequently, we tried to get the source of the viral video. We observed that the badge worn by the police officers in the video resembled that of the Rajasthan police.
A video of the incident in Churu sent by Chouhan can be seen below.
We found multiple similarities between this video which was shot from a different angle and the viral one, especially in terms of the people present there.
We further reached out to Bhumi Birmi. Speaking to India Today, she confirmed that the woman in the video was her. Birmi said that she was not arrested during the incident and added that Sharma was not present during the protest.
According to Birmi, thousands of farmers had gathered at the SDM office on the 99th day of their dharna with 20 demands, including crop insurance claims. When the protestors tried to break the barricades, police resorted to lathi-charging.
A longer version of the now-viral video was uploaded by Birmi on her Facebook account on June 15.
We also found that multiple media outlets had reported the incident. Birmi’s name was mentioned in these reports.
It is hence clear that the woman seen in the viral video is not Nupur Sharma, but Bhartiya Kisan Union (Non-political) leader Bhumi Birmi. This incident — a farmers’ protest — has nothing to do with Sharma’s comments.
(With inputs from Vijay Chouhan and Sanjana Saxena)
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