A video is doing rounds on social media in which one can see a group of people bearing blue flags accompanied by police officers standing on one side of a road covered with stones as a mob stands on the other. The post describes this incident as an Ambedkar Jayanthi Shobha Yatra stopped by Muslims. Let’s verify the claim made in this post.
Claim: Visuals of Muslims obstructing an Ambedkar Jayanthi celebration by pelting bricks and stones.
Fact: This incident occurred in Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura on 14 April 2023. Reportedly, stones were thrown at people participating in an Ambedkar Jyanthi Shobha Yatra in Bhartia village. Upon receiving information about this incident, police reached the place and restored peace and an FIR was registered. No persons named in the FIR were Muslims. Hence the claim made in the post is False.
We performed a basic keyword search online to learn more details regarding the post, leading us to several news reports (here, here and here) on the incident. According to Times of India and TV 9, this incident occurred on 14 April 2023 during an Ambedkar Jayanti procession/Shobha yatra held at Bhartiya village of Mathura under the police station limits Jait. Stones were thrown at people participating in the procession.
‘According to the police, a group of men from the Thakur community had been raising objections to the Ambedkar Jayanti procession being carried out by people from the Jatav community the in the vicinity.‘ Times of India’s report stated. A village resident told Times of India that a group of men were against the procession passing through their houses and hurled casteist slurs against them and pelted stones.
Police reached the spot and restored peace (here and here). An FIR was registered, and three people mentioned in the FIR were also arrested. We accessed a copy of the FIR and found that none of the accused named in it were Muslims. To confirm whether Muslims had pelted stones on that day, we spoke to the SHO of Jait Police Station, Ajay Verma, who told us that none of those involved in this stone pelting incident was Muslim.
To sum up, no Muslims were involved in this stone pelting incident in Mathura during an Ambedkar Jayanthi Shobha Yatra.
