Hanuman Jayanti in 2025 was observed on 12 April 2025, coinciding with ongoing violence in Murshidabad, West Bengal, following the passage of the Waqf Amendment Bill. In this context, a video (here, here and here) has gone viral showing two policemen beating a man while chanting ‘Jai Hanuman.’ It is being shared with the claim that the officers involved are SP Nishat Parvez and ADSP Farhat Abbas, and that the incident took place on Hanuman Jayanti. Let’s uncover the truth behind this video.
Claim: The viral video showing two Muslim policemen beating a person for saying “Jai Hanuman” is linked to recent communal incidents in West Bengal during Hanuman Jayanti.
Fact: The video has been circulating on the internet since 2014. It is not related to any recent communal incidents in West Bengal. The video was debunked by the West Bengal CID, and the person responsible for spreading the false news was arrested in 2017. Hence, the claim is FALSE.
To verify the authenticity of the video, we performed a reverse image search on Google, which led us to the same clip uploaded on a YouTube channel named Indian Zone on 30 September 2014. The video was titled “Indian police beating a man,” indicating that the footage is not recent but rather an old one, unrelated to the current Hanuman Jayanti or Waqf Amendment Bill events.
Another result led us to a post from the official West Bengal CID account dated 12 July 2017. It featured a screenshot from the viral video along with a photo of a man, captioned: “Tarun Sengupta, Secretary BJP IT Cell, Asansol, WB, arrested today for spreading fake news and creating communal disharmony.” This indicates that the same video was previously shared with a false communal spin, for which an individual had already been arrested.
We also came across multiple news reports (here and here) about the incident. According to them, BJP IT Cell Secretary Tarun Sengupta was arrested from Radhanagar, Hirapur in Asansol for posting a provocative and fake video on Facebook. The Siuri court later ordered eight days of police custody.
Although we couldn’t verify the exact location or date of the video, it has been available on the internet since 2014. What is certain, however, is that the video is not linked to any recent communal incidents in West Bengal. The same claim has circulated since 2017, and the video has been debunked by multiple fact-checkers (here and here), including Factly.
To sum up, a video of police beating a man has gone viral again, falsely claiming it shows Muslim police officers beating a Hindu in West Bengal amid communal tensions.
