A video has been shared by multiple accounts on Facebook, which shows policemen lathicharging young men who have gathered inside what appears to be a Government office complex. The claim accompanying the video is that these are unemployed youth who have been assaulted by the Uttar Pradesh police simply because they sat on a peaceful dharna outside Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s residence in Lucknow.
Shocked to see video of UP Police, on social media, brutally assaulting unemployed youths for daring to sit on peaceful dharna outside CM #YogiAdityanath residence in Lucknow demanding jobs.
Posted by Navaid Hamid on Saturday, August 4, 2018
The above post was uploaded by a Facebook user on August 4, 2018 and has been viewed more than 50,000 times since then. It has also been shared more than 1500 times. Scrolling through the comments below the post reveals how social media users have fallen for the narrative.
Incident occurred in Aligarh, not Lucknow
The incident of lathicharge by UP police which is shown in this video had taken place on June 12, 2018. The young men seen in the video are not unemployed youth protesting against CM Yogi Adityanath as claimed, but members of the Hindu Jagran Manch (HJM), a Hindutva outfit. They were protesting outside the office of the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) demanding the arrest of a person who had allegedly assaulted one of the members of HJM. The incident had been reported by multiple media organisations including Times of India, Indian Express and ANI.
#WATCH: Police baton charge on members of Hindu Jagran Manch who were protesting outside the office of Aligarh Senior Superintent of Police (SSP), demanding the arrest of accused who had attacked one of their members. pic.twitter.com/vJkqoWxUkT
— ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) June 12, 2018
Alt News had earlier reported how the same video had been used with a different narrative, targeting Vasundhara Raje and the Rajasthan Government with the claim that Rajasthan police had baton-charged youth who were demanding their legitimate rights. Sharing sensational videos with a false context is staple within the misinformation ecosystem, and this tendency is observed regularly on social media.
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