A post accompanying the video of a mob thrashing a person is being shared widely with a claim that the person involved is BJP MLA Nand Kishor Gurjar and the mob beating him were farmers, at the Ghazipur border. Through this article, let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of BJP MLA Nand Kishor Gurjar being thrashed by farmers at Ghazipur border.
Fact: The video in the post is of an unrelated incident that took place in 2016 in Asansol, West Bengal, where Union Minister Babul Supriyo and his convoy were allegedly attacked. The person in the video is a BJP party worker who was allegedly being attacked by Trinamool Congress supporters in front of the police. The video has nothing to do with the MLA or farmers or Ghazipur which is in Uttar Pradesh (UP). Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When the screenshots of the video were run through Yandex Reverse Image Search, the longer version of the same clip was found to be uploaded (the video clip begins at 12 seconds in the posted video) on YouTube in 2016. The clip was uploaded to the official ANI YouTube Channel. In the description below the ‘ANI’ video, it can be read that – ‘Union Minister Babul Supriyo and his convoy was on Tuesday attacked by the Trinamool Congress (TMC) supporters in West Bengal’s Asansol district. During the scuffle, a BJP party worker was also thrashed, and his clothes were ripped. The mob allegedly pelted stones and thrashed party workers in the presence of police officials.’
The incident was reported by other news outlets like Financial Express, Mint, Economic Times. Also, this video clip has already been debunked by FACTLY earlier in a fact-check article, in a different context in 2020.
However, in a different incident, Abohar MLA Arun Narang of BJP was thrashed by farmers in Punjab, which has nothing to do with the posted video or the alleged claim in the post. The news reports of which can be seen here, here and here.
To sum it up, the video of an old incident from West Bengal is being shared as ‘BJP MLA beaten by farmers at Ghazipur border’. It is true that a BJP MLA from Abohar, Punjab has been beaten by farmers, but it has nothing to do with the post accompanying the video. Hence, the claim made in the post is false.
