A video of a group of people beating a policeman is viral on social media. It has been claimed that “Mukhtar Ganj SP MLA Salim Haidar” and Ram Kripal Yadav beat a police officer. Yadav is a BJP Bihar MLA. Twitter user ‘@DrGunwanta’ tweeted the visuals with the same claim. It received more than 1,700 views as of this writing. (Archive link)

The footage is viral on Facebook and Twitter. It was also posted in numerous Facebook groups, including ‘Rss # कार्यकर्ता‘, ‘I Support Narendra Modi, Yogi Ji & RSS‘, ‘योगी आदित्यनाथ जी के फैन (ग्रुप)’.

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The video was also uploaded on YouTube with the same claim.

Fact-check

Alt News performed a keyword search and came across a Dainik Bhaskar report dated December 3. According to the report, this incident occurred on the night of December 2 in Lucknow. Inspector Vinod Kumar was driving through the area when his vehicle collided against another vehicle parked on the road outside a hotel. Following the collision, a group of people rushed outside to the scene and began attacking Kumar. Reportedly, a man named Ashish Shukla slapped the inspector. A case was filed against four individuals at the Hasanganj police station. They were later arrested.

Lucknow police also reported that four people were arrested. In the video below, officer Prachi Singh identifies them as Pravendra Mathur, Priyank Mathur, Ashish Kumar Shukla and Pranjul Mathur.

Alt News also contacted the SHO of Hasanganj police station Ashok Sonkar. He denied the claim about the perpetrators being affiliated with the Samajwadi Party. “The accused have no ties with the Samajwadi Party or any other political party,” he explained.

Moreover, neither is there an MLA in the SP named Salim Haidar nor is Mukhtar Ganj a constituency.

To sum it up, footage of people beating a policeman in the middle of a road was shared with the false claim that an SP MLA named Salim Haidar was behind the attack. It is worth noting that several false claims about the Samajwadi Party have been circulating on social media against the backdrop of the upcoming Uttar Pradesh legislative assembly elections. You can find Alt News’s fact-check reports on these here.

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About the Author

Kinjal Parmar holds a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology. However, her keen interest in journalism, drove her to pursue journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication. At Alt News since 2019, she focuses on authentication of information which includes visual verification, media misreports, examining mis/disinformation across social media. She is the lead video producer at Alt News and manages social media accounts for the organization.