CAA Protest: Police lathicharge video from Lucknow shared as brutality by Ahmedabad police

by Jignesh Patel

A video of a group of policemen lathi-charging a crowd of protesters is circulating on WhatsApp. Alt News received fact-check requests where the accompanying claim reads, “शाहआलम मे पत्थरमारा करने से पहेले पुलीस ने बिना कीसी वजह के लाठीचार्ज कीया,,, पब्लिक पर (Before the stone-pelting in Shahalam, police had lathi-charged on public without any reason -translated)”, reads the text viral with the said video on WhatsApp.

The clip has also been shared on Twitter with the same claim.

On December 19, protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019, took a violent turn and left several people including 19 police personnel injured in Shah Alam area of Ahmedabad, Gujarat. According to a report, at around 5 PM, violence erupted after protesters threw stones and attacked police personnel and their vehicles. The police had reportedly come to disperse the protesters from the agitation site.

“Multiple videos showed crowd chasing police control room vans with stones after which police fired tear gas shells and resorted to lathi-charge,” reported The Indian Express on December 20.

Speaking to news agency ANI, Ahmedabad Commissioner of Police Ashish Bhatia said, “We have detained around 32 people, we are registering FIR. We are identifying others based on CCTV footage. 19 police personnel were injured in the incident.”

Fact-check

Alt News found that several other users on Twitter claimed that the video is from Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Journalist Saurabh Trivedi posted the video on December 19, 2019, with the message, “#Lucknow Police lathi-charged people who gathered to protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the National Register of Citizens. #CAA_NRC #lucknowprotest”.

To corroborate that the video is from Lucknow and NOT Ahmedabad, we analysed it frame by frame and matched one of the frames with a photograph tweeted by The Indian Express.

In the comparison below, we have juxtaposed a frame from the video with The Indian Express photograph. One more media report corroborates that the video is from Lucknow.

Left: Screengrab from video(Edited) Right: The Indian Express (Edited)

Ahmedabad City Police’s official Twitter handle has also clarified that the video doing the rounds on social media is from Lucknow and NOT Ahmedabad.

In conclusion, a video of police lathi-charging anti-CAA protesters in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh was shared as Ahmedabad police instigating the protesters at Shah Alam.

About the Author

Jignesh is a writer and researcher at Alt News. He has a knack for visual investigation with a major interest in fact-checking videos and images. He has completed his Masters in Journalism from Gujarat University.