Old video of a police raid in Uttar Pradesh’s Agra shared as from Madhya Pradesh with a communal narrative - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
September 27, 2023
A video is being shared on social media claiming that the visuals show police apprehending Muslim boys and Hindu girls caught during a raid at a hookah bar in Madhya Pradesh. The post claims that 15 Muslim boys and 15 Hindu girls were caught during this raid in Madhya Pradesh. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: A video of police spotting Muslim boys with Hindu girls during a raid at a hookah bar in Madhya Pradesh.
Fact: The post shared an old video from Agra in Uttar Pradesh. Young men and women were caught in objectional positions during a police raid inside a café house in Sanjay Place in Agra. The video shared in the post is not from Madhya Pradesh and there is no communal angle in the incident. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
On reverse image search of the screenshots of the video, a video showing similar visuals was found published by the ‘Bharath Samachar’ news site on 11 August 2022. This news channel reported it is the footage of a police raid conducted inside a café in Agra, Uttar Pradesh. ‘Bharath Samachar’ reported that 3 constables from Hariparvat police station were suspended by the higher officials for capturing inappropriate videos of young boys and girls during a raid at a café in Agra.
आगरा
➡भारत समाचार की खबर का बड़ा असर
➡सिपाही रंजीत समेत 3 पुलिसकर्मी हुए सस्पेंड
➡युवक-युवती की आपत्तिजनक वीडियो किए थे वायरल
➡अवैध धंधे की शिकायत पर पहुंची थी पुलिस
➡हरिपर्वत पुलिस ने कैफे को किया था सील।#Agra pic.twitter.com/MOSYb3wmuk
When we searched for further sources using relevant keywords, we found several news reports about this raid conducted by Hariparvat police officials. They can be seen here, here, and here. As per reports, the police officials from Hariparvat police station caught young boys and girls in objectionable positions during a raid conducted at a café house in Sanjay Place in Agra. The constables involved in the raid recorded the videos that displayed the boys and girls in objectionable positions. There are no reports indicating that 15 Muslim boys and 15 Hindu girls were apprehended during this police raid at a café in Agra.
When the recorded video went viral on social media, the Agra Police Commissionerate published a tweet announcing the suspension of three constables on the charges of recording and leaking the objectionable videos of boys and girls who were caught during the raid at a café house in Agra.
pic.twitter.com/tNE1NVqIhV
In 2022, when the video was shared on social media with a communal narrative, Boom Live reached out to Agra’s Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Prabhakar Chaudhary for clarification. Speaking to Boom, Prabhakar Chaudhary said, “The claim is false. There is no communal angle to the incident. We have kept their identities private”. From all these pieces of evidence, it can be concluded that the video shared in the post shows an old incident from Uttar Pradesh and that there is no communal angle in the incident.
To sum it up, an old video from Uttar Pradesh portrayed the visuals of Muslim men caught with Hindu girls during a police raid at a hookah bar in Madhya Pradesh.