A video accompanied by a post is being widely shared on social media claiming that the person caught by the UP police in the video is Ansar Ahmed, who threatened to remove Durga Puja Pandal in Azamgarh. Let us fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of UP police arresting a person who threatened to remove a Durga Puja Pandal in Azamgarh.
Fact: The video is from an incident in Noida when police arrested a group of four miscreants. The group was infamously called as ‘screwdriver’ gang as they would attack the victims with screwdrivers and later rob them. The group were identified as Anand Verma, Shiv Kumar Verma, Deepak Verma and Bablu Verma. However, the Azamgarh Police did arrest a person and registered a case for waving illegal firearm at a religious place (Durga Puja Pandal). The accused was identified as Ansar Ahmed of Azamgarh, who threatened to remove Durga Puja Pandal and kill people. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
When reverse image search is done on the screenshots of the video, a tweet with the same video was found. The tweet was by Pankaj Jha, Editor ABP News. Pankaj Jha, in his tweet says that a group of four miscreants was caught by the Noida police. In the pretext of offering a lift in their car, the group coerces and robs people of their money from ATMs. There was no mention of Durga Puja Pandal in the tweet.
Taking the cue that the video could be from Noida, we found several articles that reported about the same incident. According to the articles (here and here), the group of four miscreants was identified as Anand Verma, Shiv Kumar Verma, Deepak Verma, and Bablu Verma. The group was infamously called as ‘screwdriver’ gang as they would attack the victims with screwdrivers and later rob them.
The Police Commissionerate of Gautam Buddh Nagar tweeted about the same incident. The tweet carried the photo of the accused as seen in the viral video.
However, the Azamgarh Police did arrest a person and registered a case for waving an illegal firearm at a religious place (Durga Puja Pandal). The accused was identified as Ansar Ahmed of Azamgarh. Ansar Ahmed threatened to remove Durga Puja Pandal and kill people who put up the pandal in Azamgarh.
To sum it up, a video of police arresting ‘screwdriver’ gang in Noida is shared as the Azamgarh incident.
