Food safety officer alleging BJP MLA Nand Kishor Gurjar attacked him is from 2019

A two-minute interview of a man is widespread with the claim that BJP MLA Nand Kishor Gurjar attacked him. It has also been alleged that the victim is a government officer and was attacked because he didn’t comply with Gurjar’s request to shut down Muslim-owned restaurants.

(Viral Hindi text: BJP के MLA नंदकिशोर गुर्जर ने लोनी के सभी मुस्लिम होटल बंद करवाने के लिए एक सरकारी ऑफ़िसर से कहा …जब ऑफ़िसर ने मना किया तो बीजेपी MLA नंदकिशोर गुर्जर ने उसे अपने ऑफिस बुलाया और उसके साथ मारपीट की ! सुनिए पूरी दास्तान खुद उस बेकसूर ऑफ़िसर की जुबानी ! #Beimaan_Modi_Sarkar )

The tweet embedded below gained over 60,000 views.

BJP के MLA नंदकिशोर गुर्जर ने लोनी के सभी मुस्लिम होटल बंद करवाने के लिए एक सरकारी ऑफ़िसर से कहा …
जब ऑफ़िसर ने मना किया तो बीजेपी MLA नंदकिशोर गुर्जर ने उसे अपने ऑफिस बुलाया और उसके साथ मारपीट की !
सुनिए पूरी दास्तान खुद उस बेकसूर ऑफ़िसर की जुबानी !#Beimaan_Modi_Sarkar 👇 pic.twitter.com/HGfAbywWJg

— Santosh Kaur (@Kaur0211) February 10, 2021

In the two-minute video, the man says that a representative of an MLA called him. His name was Lalit Sharma. The man claimed that Sharma enquired why he wasn’t shutting down Salam Hotel, to which he replied that there wasn’t any breach of protocol. The man then alleged that he was beaten by the MLA and later by his security guards upon his visit to the MLA’s office.

BJP MLA Nand Kishor Gurjar has been in the news after the January 26 violence that ensued during farmers’ tractor rally. He had said in a now-deleted tweet that farmer leaders and opposition leaders Arvind Kejriwal and Yogendra Yadav should be hanged to death. He blamed them and Rakesh Tikait for the violence.

The video was also shared by the national president of Bharat Prabhat Party Archana Singh and Samajwadi Party spokesperson (as per Twitter bio) Birendra Kumar Yadav.

Several Facebook and Twitter users posted the video.

Video from 2019

Alt News performed a reverse image search on Yandex and found this incident was reported by Republic World in November 2019. According to the channel, a Ghaziabad-based BJP MLA attacked food department officials in his office. It was also reported by Punjab Kesri and News18.

Hindustan Times reported that food safety inspector Ashutosh Singh approached the district administration and the police alleging that he was held captive and beaten by BJP MLA Nand Kishor Gurjar. Singh told Hindustan Times that Gurjar’s representative Lalit Sharma called him, as heard in the viral video.

Around the 1-minute mark in the News18 video, Singh said that the conflict between Gurjar arose after he insisted to shut restaurants selling meat. However, Singh argued that there is no protocol against selling cooked meat but only slaughterhouses.

SP Neeraj Kumar Jadaun told HT that he received Singh’s complaint against more than 10 people including Gurjar and his security guards. Gurjar refuted Singh’s claim and told HT, “The allegations of beating him are false. If about 15 men had beaten him, he would have been severely injured.”

Alt News couldn’t independently verify if Singh was thrashed by BJP MLA Gurjar and his goons. However, the incident is from 2019 and not recent.