Fact Check: Video claiming violence during police arrests is NOT from Uttar Pradesh but Hyderabad
It is being claimed that the police barged into the homes of the protesters who took part in the rally against the RSS and took them into custody.
A video of police using force while arresting a few men is in circulation on social media with the narrative that the UP government, led by Yogi Adityanath, took protesters into custody after an anti-RSS rally.
It is being claimed that the police barged into the homes of the protesters who took part in the rally against the RSS and took them into custody.
The caption of the viral video in Hindi claims "शाम को 5:00 बजे PFI के लिए रै
When translated, it claims "PFI rally was taken out at 5 pm to protest against RSS and at 7pm Yogi government showed the results."
Fact check:
The claim that the video shows the UP police arresting protesters in Uttar Pradesh is FALSE. The video is from Hyderabad dating back to August 2022.
Firstly, when we observed the video carefully, we found a frame showing the number plate of the police car which starts with TS-09, which means the police vehicle is from Telangana but not from Uttar Pradesh.
When we performed keyframe search using Google reverse image search, we found that the video is NOT recent and was from August 2022. We found several social media shares of the same video with the caption "Several reports of violent policing in Old City region of #Hyderabad. Many instances where youth were picked up from their homes and beaten. Heavy deployment continues in #Hyderabad."
A Facebook post by Gohash.in also shares the viral video with caption "HYD | Police Entering Houses beating and arresting | Hyderabad Police Brutality on Muslims at qazipura shalibanda"
We also found a tweet by Siasat Daily on August 25, 2022 with a narrative "On Wednesday night, the Hyderabad police first detained a few dozen protestors first around 7:30 – 8 pm. Following that, a few hundred then turned up to protest demanding the release of those who were picked up."
On searching with keywords "Hyderabad police detaining protesters in Shalibanda", we found a few news articles which actually explained the series of events that occurred on that day.
According to Siasat Daily, the city police barged into several homes and dragged out Muslim youth in and around Shalibanda following protests against suspended BJP MLA Raja Singh who made derogatory remarks against Prophet Muhammad.
The angry youth at Shalibanda were demanding the arrest of Raja Singh after he passed derogatory comments against Prophet Muhammad in a video released on August 22. Some of the Muslim youth who were arrested also said that the police barged into their homes and picked up a few even when they did not take part in the protests.
According to The Hindu, in no mood to take chances with the law and order situation in the city, police made announcements on public address systems in the evening. After a couple of hours, the cops began to intensively patrol the streets and urged people to close their shops and go home. This exercise was seen in Moghalpura, near Volta Hotel, and Kotla Alijah, among many other places. By 8 pm, a vast majority of shops were closed. Police barricades and pickets were put in place across the Old City.