Image of injured Sikh man from 2019 falsely shared as police brutality during farmers’ protest

In a now-deleted tweet, Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala had shared an image of a Sikh man with bruises and wounds across his back. He claimed that it showed a farmer who had been beaten with lathis while protesting. A screenshot of the tweet can be found below.

Another Twitter user Chaudhary Rohit Singh Yadav tweeted the photo with #BoycottBJP. His post had racked up more than 450 retweets at the time of writing. (Archive link)

खुल कर करेंगे तेरे जुल्म की मुखालफत,
तुम इस वक़्त के शहंशाह हो, मेरे मुल्क के खुदा नहीं।#BoycottBJP pic.twitter.com/JoTasY9CrI

— Chaudhary Rohit Singh Yadav (@BeingRohitYadav) January 27, 2021

Several other users have been sharing this image on Twitter and Facebook with the same claim.

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Fact-check

Alt News performed a reverse image search on Google, which led us to the same image shared on a Facebook post dated June 17, 2019. The post read that in a terrible incident, this man was beaten so brutally by the Delhi police that it left deep gashes on his body.

According to an NDTV article dated June 25, 2019, a fight broke out between a few policemen and a Sikh tempo driver in ​​Delhi’s Mukherjee Nagar area on July 16. The man got into a physical altercation with the police officers. In a few viral videos of the clash, a Sikh man can be seen running after the cops with a sword. In another set of visuals, a few policemen are beating the man with lathis. While investigating the case, the Delhi Police sacked two officers. ABP Manjha shared these photos in its report covering the scuffle.

Aaj Tak reported that auto driver Sarabjit attacked a group of policemen with a sword, after which they beat him and his son. Members of the Sikh community began protesting after a video of the skirmish went viral. In what turned out to be a cross-case, two FIRs were filed in the matter, the first by Sarabjit, and the second by the accused. Aaj Tak’s video report on the incident can be found below.

A Dainik Bhaskar story stated that Sarabjit had been involved in another assault case earlier as well. He was ultimately released with a warning.

A Sikh man was beaten brutally after getting into a scuffle with police officers in Delhi’s Mukherjee Nagar area in 2019. A picture of the man’s injuries was recently being circulated online in connection with police brutality towards protesting farmers.