2016 photo of the manhandling of a traffic head constable in Rajasthan is shared with a false communal narrative - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
April 8, 2022
A photo through a post is being widely shared on social media claiming that a Muslim man is assaulting a police officer on duty recently. Let us fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Photo of Muslim man assaulting a police officer.
Fact: The photo is from 2016, and not a recent one. An angry street hawker (who is a Hindu) from Jodhpur manhandled a traffic head constable after the police officer was discarding the handcarts that were illegally placed near the streets. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When reverse image search is done on the photo, the same photo was found in a newspaper article which is being shared on social media since 2020. According to the newspaper clipping, an angry street hawker manhandled a traffic head constable after he was discarding the handcarts that were illegally placed near the streets of Ghantaghar, Jodhpur in Rajasthan.
When we searched in google with relevant keywords, several news reports (here and here) from 2016 were found. According to the Dainik Bhaskar article, the handcart driver who assaulted the head constable was Premchand Mali (son of Dharmendra), who was a resident of Nagoria Bera. The name of the traffic head constable is Shobharam.
Further, it was the BJP government that was in power in Rajasthan when this incident took place in 2016 and hence, has nothing to do with Ashok Gehlot or the current Congress government in the state.
The assaulted head constable who is now an Assistant Sub-Inspector in Jodhpur Police confirmed to BOOM that the hawker who assaulted him in 2016 was not a Muslim.
To sum it up, a 2016 photo of a head constable manhandled in Rajasthan is falsely shared as a Muslim man assaulting a police officer.