Old video of a mob attacking police in Odisha shared as visuals from the protests against Agnipath scheme in Bihar - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
July 1, 2022
A video is being shared on social media claiming it as the recent visuals of army aspirants attacking a police vehicle in Bihar while demanding the rollback of the Centre’s Agnipath scheme. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Recent video of army aspirants attacking a police vehicle in Bihar while demanding the rollback of the Agnipath scheme.
Fact: The video is related to an old incident where local residents of a village in Bhadrak district in Odisha attacked police and vandalised their vehicle after the suicide of a fellow resident, following an alleged assault by police during an interrogation. Multiple news agencies reported the incident. The video has nothing to do with the recent protests against the Agnipath scheme. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On reverse image search of the screenshots in the video, similar visuals of a mob attacking a police vehicle were found in a video published by the ‘ONA Khabar’ news channel on 14 January 2021. This news channel reported it as the visuals of a protest over a man’s death in Bhadrak, Odisha.
Google search with relevant keywords led us to a January 2021 news article that published an image of a vehicle similar to the one shown in the video. The locality surrounding the vehicle shown in the image is similar to the locality shown in the latter half of the video. As per this article, the police vehicle was set ablaze by locals of Hatuari village after violence broke out over the death of a resident, Bapi Mahalik of the same village. According to the article, the youth died falling into a pond during a chase by the police.
A further search yielded another news article that reported the same incident. As per this article, angry residents of a village in Bhadrak set a police van on fire after the death of a fellow resident following an alleged assault by police during their interrogation. A few other news reports related to the incident can be seen here and here. All these pieces of evidence suggest that the video is related to a mob setting ablaze a police vehicle in Odisha and has nothing to do with the recent protests against the Agnipath scheme.
Earlier, when the same video was shared on social media as the visuals of Trinamool Congress Party (TMC) supporters attacking police in West Bengal, FACTLY published a fact-check article debunking that claim.
To sum it up, an old video of a mob attacking police in Odisha is shared as the recent visuals from the protests against the Agnipath scheme in Bihar.