A video of a group of men being beaten by police in what seems like a police station is being shared on social media. The visuals also show a jail cell crammed with people. This video is being shared linking them to the riots that took place on Mumbai’s Mira road in the context of the inauguration of the Ram Mandir in January 2024. Let’s verify the authenticity of this claim through this article.
Claim: Visuals show Mira road rioters captured by police getting beaten.
Fact: These are old videos from 2022. In June 2022, the Uttar Pradesh (UP) police reportedly captured and beat people protesting over controversial remarks about Prophet Muhammad by a BJP spokespersons. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
To check the veracity of the viral video, we performed a keyword search on the internet, which led us to various news reports (here, here, and here) from 2022 related to the viral video.
Reportedly, this video was posted by Shalabh Mani Tripathi, a BJP MLA of UP, on X. This incident took place in UP’s Saharanpur during the June 2022 protests that erupted after the alleged derogatory remarks on Prophet Muhammad made by BJP spokespersons Nupur Sharma and Naveen Kumar Jindal.
‘According to reports, the video was shot two days ago in a police station in Saharanpur, where protests and clashes erupted after Friday prayers over the controversial remarks against Prophet Muhammad by two former BJP spokespersons.’ NDTV reported in June 2022.
The viral video also contained a clip of a police cell packed with a few people, which can be seen at the beginning of the video. News reports about the Saharanpur protests contained a photo that matches with the visulas in the viral video.
To sum up, visuals of incidents from UP’s Saharanpur in 2022 are being falsely linked to the 2024 Mira Road communal violence.
