Incidents of stone-pelting and violence were reported during the Rama Navami celebrations across multiple states. It is in this context a social media post that shared visuals of police accompanying a group of women to a vehicle is being widely shared. The post claims that the visuals show police arresting them for pelting stones at the Sri Rama Navami procession. Through this article let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Visuals of police arresting women who pelted stones at Rama Navami procession.
Fact: These visuals show police escorting primary contacts of a COVID-19 patient, to a quarantine facility in Moradabad, back in April 2020. Multiple news agencies have reported these visuals back then. There are reports of police arresting a few people regarding stone pelting incidents during Rama Navami celebrations in multiple states, however, viral visuals are not related to these arrests. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
These visuals are old and are from Moradabad, when Police were escorting the primary contacts of a COVID-19 patient, to a quarantine facility. Reverse image search of the viral visuals yielded us an April 2020 local news report that reported the same visuals.
The description accompanying the report reads ‘A mob pelted stones to stop a medical team from taking a coronavirus-infected man into isolation in Moradabad’. The report also carries video of women pelting stones.
Taking a cue from the local news report, further search with relevant keywords yielded multiple news reports, which reported these visuals back in April 2020 (here, here, & here). Even as per these reports, the visuals show police escorting primary contacts of a COVID-19 patient, to a quarantine facility, following stone-pelting on doctors and police team by the relatives of the patient.
Lately, multiple incidents of stone-pelting and communal violence have been reported during Sri Rama Navami celebrations in several states, and police have also made a few arrests related to these incidents (here & here). However, the viral visuals have nothing to do with these arrests and are related to COVID-19 isolation.
To sum it up, old visuals from Moradabad are passed off as police arrest of Sri Rama Navami stone-pelters.
