On 29 June 2025, Chandrashekhar Azad, Bhim Army chief and MP from Nagina was detained and placed under house arrest (here, here, and here) while attempting to visit Isota village in Karchhana tehsil to meet the family of Devi Shankar, who was reportedly burnt to death on 13 April 2025. Azad’s detention sparked violence in the Karchhana area of Prayagraj, reportedly involving his supporters. As per reports, police have arrested 85 people, including several accused of instigating the clash
In this context, a video (here, here, and here) showing police escorting injured men is being circulated on social media, claiming it captures Uttar Pradesh police arresting and giving ‘treatment’ to Chandrashekhar Azad’s supporters who rioted during the Prayagraj riots on 19 June 2025. We will fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: Video shows Chandrashekhar Azad’s supporters arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Police for rioting in Prayagraj on 29 June 2025.
Fact: The video is from Sri Ganganagar, Rajasthan, showing the arrest of an alleged extortion gang. The footage is unrelated to the Prayagraj riots. Hence, the claim made in the post is Misleading.
To check the veracity of the viral claim, we performed a reverse image search using keyframes from the viral video. This search led us to multiple social media posts (here, here, here, and here) from 5-6 June 2025, which said that it shows an extortion gang caught red-handed by the Sri Ganganagar police in Rajasthan. We can clearly see the words ‘Raj Cop’ on the back of the car seen in the video. This makes it clear that the viral video predates the 29 June 2025 Priyagraj riots and that it’s unrelated to the Uttar Pradesh police.
To learn more about this incident, we performed an additional search and found a news report published by Patrika.com on this incident in their Sri Ganganagar city edition on 5 June 2025 (archive link).
As per this report, the Sri Gnaganagar district police arrested four men who were extorting money from a businessman posing as gangsters. The police had recovered Rs. 5 lakh from the accused. A police team caught them at the businessman’s place based on a complaint given by him. The accused were sent to remand till 9 June 2025.
The Sri Ganganagar Police shared several news clippings related to this arrest on their social media accounts (here, here, and here). We can clearly see the men in the viral video in these reports.
Official posts and news reports from the Sri Ganganagar police (here and here) confirm that the individuals seen in the viral video were apprehended on 5 June 2025 while targeting a businessman in Rajasthan. The incident is unrelated to the 29 June 2025 riots in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh.
To sum up, a video from Rajasthan showing a criminal gang’s arrest is being falsely linked to the 29 June 2025 Prayagraj violence.
