A video featuring a man taking away a Hindu religious flag from a youth participating in a procession is circulating widely on social media. The post claims that members of the Muslim community snatched the flag and threw it on the ground from a Hindu youth during the procession in the village of Sanoli Khurd, Panipat, Haryana. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Visuals of a Muslim man snatching a Hindu religious flag from a Youth during a procession.
Fact: This incident occurred during a Janmasthami procession in September 2023 in the Sanoli Khurd village of Haryana. Some members of Bajrang Dal entered the Muslim area of the village, waving religious flags and raising slogans. To prevent communal tensions in the village, village sarpanch Sanjay Tyagi and temple committee members intervened. They took the flags away and requested the group to refrain from raising religious slogans. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
First, we conducted an internet search using relevant keywords to gain more insight into this incident. We discovered media reports by Amar Ujala dated 10th and 12th September 2023. According to these reports, the youth of Sanoli Khurd village in Panipat, Haryana, were engaged in a religious procession on the occasion of Janmashtami. As this procession passed through a predominantly Muslim area, some members of Bajrang Dal arrived with religious flags and reportedly began chanting religious slogans.
To prevent an escalation and avoid confrontation, temple committee members, along with village sarpanch Sanjay Tyagi, intervened, taking away the flags from two Bajrang Dal youths. Bajrang Dal members responded by demanding an apology from the Sarpanch and lodging a complaint with Sanoli Police. We proceeded to contact the SHO of the Sanoli police, Sunil Kumar, inquiring about the incident captured in the viral video. He denied any communal aspect to the event, stating that the person taking the flag away from the youth was Sanjay Tyagi, the village sarpanch.
In an interview with Vishwas News, Sanjay Tyagi said that the villagers had staged a procession on Janmashtami and as the procession came near the Madarsa, some members of the Bajrang Dal joined it and started waving flags and raising slogans. Observing this, a member of the temple committee stopped a Youth, and they (along with him) later removed the flag from his hand. Tyagi stated that he had also requested the group to refrain from raising slogans and to depart from the area. He continued, saying that the individual from whom the flag was taken was also a local village youth and denied communal angle. He said that he intervened to prevent communal tensions within the village. He further stated that the flag, throughout this event, was not disrespected or mishandled in any way.
To sum it up, the viral video does not show Muslims snatching a Hindu religious flag during a procession in Haryana.
