This video shows police detaining people without a mask in Ujjain, not Delhi - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
November 27, 2020
A post with a video showing police detaining people without a mask is being widely shared across all social media platforms with the claim that the video shows Delhi police detaining people for not wearing a mask. It also says that they are being put in jail for 10 hours. Through this article, let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Delhi police detaining people and putting them in jail for ten hours for not wearing a mask.
Fact: The video actually shows Ujjain, MP police detaining people who ventured out without wearing masks. We can even spot the Madhya Pradesh registration number on the police vehicle seen in the video. There are news articles and videos confirming the same. Hence the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
We can clearly spot the Madhya Pradesh registration number on the police vehicle seen in the video in the post. Taking a cue from this, YouTube search with relevant keywords led us to a local news video which featured visuals similar to the one in the post. According to the report, in the light of the increasing cases of COVID-19 in Ujjain, police began a crackdown on people venturing out without wearing masks and detained them for ten hours in open jails and also slashed them with fines. In the news video, we can hear ASP Amarendra Sinha saying the same, though he did not comment on the quantum of time these detainees have to spend in jail.
Further Google search led us to a news article which reported the same incident. Even according to this article, the video shows Ujjain police detaining people who ventured out without wearing a mask and these detainees were put in jail for ten hours. Few other news articles saying the same can be read here and here. With all this, we can say that the video is from Ujjain, MP and it has nothing to do with Delhi.
However, we could not find any official government order or news articles saying people venturing out without masks will be detained for ten hours by police in Ujjain or for that matter in MP. Also, we did not find any news article saying such rule is going to be implemented in any other states.
In the wake of increasing COVID-19 cases in the national capital, news like these are being widely shared across social media with misleading claims.
To sum it up, the video shows Ujjain police detaining people not Delhi.