A video (here, here & here) showing a group of policemen destroying CCTV cameras is being widely shared on social media, accompanied by a claim that it depicts police officers erasing evidence of the 2024 Sambhal violence in Uttar Pradesh. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Policemen destroying CCTV footage to erase evidence of 2024 Sambhal violence.
Fact: This is an old video, reportedly captured during the 2020 CAA protests. Multiple media outlets reported on this video in February 2020. It has no connection to the 2024 Sambhal violence. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
A reverse image search of the viral visuals has led us to the same video uploaded (here, here & here) on YouTube by multiple media outlets on 26 February 2020. As per the description of these videos, the visuals show police destroying CCTV cameras in Delhi’s Khureji Khas during the CAA protests in February 2020.
A further Google search using relevant keywords led us to a news article (archive) by The Quint that reported the video in February 2020. According to the article, shopkeepers near the petrol pump in the video in the Khureji Khas area confirmed that the police had indeed destroyed the CCTV cameras they had set up.
FACTLY previously debunked the same video in 2021 when it was falsely linked to the tractor rally protest on Republic Day that year.
To sum it up, a 2020 video of police destroying CCTV cameras during the CAA protests is being misrepresented as footage from the 2024 Sambhal violence.
