Old and unrelated video from 2020 is falsely shared as a female police officer attempting immolation in front of UP CM Yogi Adityanath’s residence
A graphic video (here, here, and here) of a woman burning in fire as police officers try to put out the fire and save her is doing the rounds on social media. It is being claimed that the woman featured in the video is a female police officer and that she immolated in front of Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath’s house.
Claim: The viral video depicts a recent immolation attempt of a woman in front of Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath’s residence.
Fact: The video dates back to 2020, involving a woman named Anjali Tiwari (also known as Ayesha), who attempted immolation in Lucknow over domestic issues; she died later. This is not a recent event, and she is not a police officer. Hence, the claim made in the post is Misleading.
To verify the claim’s accuracy, we conducted a keyword search using relevant terms. This search did not yield any recent media reports about a woman immolating in front of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s residence.
To learn more about the video, we performed a reverse image search on the internet using a few keyframes from the viral video. This search led us to multiple news reports (here, here, here, and here) from October 2020 featuring similar visuals as in the viral video. As per these reports, this incident took place on 13 October 2020, when a woman named Anjali Tiwari, alias Ayesha, set herself on fire in front of Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha in Lucknow.
Police officers and a few locals put out the fire on her body, and she was later admitted to a hospital. As per the reports, she is from UP’s Pachrukhiya, Maharajganj. “The woman stated that after her relationship with her first husband ended, she had changed her name and religion and was living in a separate house with a man named Asif Raza. When Asif left for Saudi Arabia, she went to his house to stay, but his family refused to accept her. The woman complained to the police but received no help. She came to Lucknow to meet the Chief Minister, but was unsuccessful. Subsequently, she set herself on fire on Tuesday,” Amar Ujala reported on 14 October 2020. She later succumbed to her injuries during the treatment.
None of the news reports mentioned that she was a police officer. Navbharat Times reported that she used to work at the Rajgharana Saree Center in Maharajganj.
Reportedly (here and here), a man named Alok Prasad, who is associated with the Congress party, was arrested for allegedly provoking Anjali. Factly accessed the FIR copy of this incident and Alok Prasad’s bail application judgement (here). None of these documents stated Anjali’s occupation as a police officer.
Additionally, we spoke to the SHO of Hazratganj police station, Lucknow, who told us that no such incident of a female police officer immolating in front of the UP CM’s house was reported. He said that the claim is false and the video must be of some old incident.
To sum up, a video of an old incident from October 2020 is falsely being shared as a recent incident of a female police officer setting herself on fire in front of UP CM Yogi Adityanath’s residence.