A video accompanied by a post is being widely shared on social media claiming that the video shows a person being attacked with sticks in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh. Let us fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of a person being attacked with sticks is from Meerut, UP.
Fact: The video is from Jhalawar city in Rajasthan and not from Meerut. The person attacked in the video was Krishna Valmiki, who succumbed to his injuries after being beaten with sticks and iron rods in Jhalawar city in Rajasthan. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When reverse image search is done on the screenshots of the video, the same video was found in a tweet published on 07 July 2021. The tweet was made by a BJP politician named Laxmikant Bhardwaj who was a former spokesperson for the BJP in Rajasthan. He questions Rahul Gandhi for his silence on the murder of a Dalit youth. He further says, ‘Krishna Valmiki was brutally murdered by Sagar Qureshi, Raees, Imran, Akhtar Ali, Ishu Qureshi in Jhalawar, Rajasthan.’ There was no mention of the video being taken in Meerut, UP.
When we searched on the internet with relevant keywords, a news article about the same incident with a similar image is found. The person attacked in the video was Krishna Valmiki, who succumbed to his injuries after being beaten with sticks and iron rods in Jhalawar city in Rajasthan. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal have protested, calling the death a result of mob lynching. The police booked the accused under IPC section 302 (murder) and denied it was mob lynching. ‘Jhalawar SP Kiran Kang Sidhu said the attack was a result of past enmity between two groups.’
The UP Police Fact Check (official Twitter handle of UP Police) tweeted and debunked the same claim made about the video. ‘This video is not from Uttar Pradesh but from Jhalrapatan police station, Jhalawar district, Rajasthan.’ The link to the Times of India article about the same incident was also provided in the tweet.
To sum it up, visuals of a person being attacked with sticks in Rajasthan are shared as that of an incident in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh.
