Old video of Chennai BJP leader thrashing BJP worker falsely viral

by Oishani Bhattacharya

A 2-minute video clip, seemingly footage from a CCTV camera, is viral on social media. In the video, a man is seen being beaten up by two others on a street. Another man is present at the scene, who first stands watching the scuffle and later tries to stop the fight. After a minute, a policeman on a bike appears. This is when the altercation ends. Several social media users claim that the incident is recent and from Tamil Nadu and that the man assaulted is ‘BJP IT and social media cell district secretary Rajesh Biju’.

Premium subscribed X (formerly Twitter) page Megh Updates 🚨™ (@MeghUpdates) shared the above-mentioned clip with the same claim. The tweet said: “Tamil Nadu: BJP IT & Social Media Cell District Secretary* Rajesh Biju was brutally thrashed last evening in front of his house. Rajesh is undergoing treatment in Sri Chakra Hospital, Nanganallur, Chennai East.”

The tweet had received over 5.5 Lakh views and had been retweeted over 7,000 times before it was deleted. (Archive)

Readers should note that Alt News has found @MeghUpdates sharing misinformation several times in the past.

Another X user, @bs_hariharan3, shared the same video tagging BJP leaders K Annamalai and J P Nadda and wrote: “Gruesome attack on BJP IT & Social Media Cell Dist Secratary Shri Rajesh Biju today evening in front of BJP functionary’s house. Rajesh is undergoing treatment in Sri Chakra Hospital, Nanganallur, Chennai East. We pray for his speedy recovery. TN policeman”. The user has now deleted the tweet. (Archive)

Several other users on X shared the same video with similar claims.

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Fact Check

On the top right corner of the footage, we noticed the date, July 31, 2023 (31.07.2023), which suggests that the video is from last year.

Further, we found a tweet by Sun News (@sunnewstamil) from August 1, 2023, which carried the same video. The caption in Tamil can be translated to: “Chennai East District BJP District General Secretary S.S. Subbiah is charged with assaulting party workers!”

In the tweet, below the video frame, the following is written in Tamil:

BJP executive who attacked his own party member! Chennai East district BJP general secretary S S Subaiah, after talking about the abolition of alcohol in public. A video of Subaiah drinking inside his restaurant went viral on social media. He and his supporters attacked the house of BJP IT division secretary Rajesh from the same district for planning and spreading the video. The injured Rajesh is undergoing treatment at Chromepet Government Hospital. Police have registered a case under three sections for defaming Subbiah, assault and threatening.”

Taking a cue from this, we ran a relevant keyword search in Tamil and came across several reports from August 2023 about the incident. We found a YouTube video posted by a news channel called Malaimurasu Tv 24X7. The video was posted on the channel on August 1, 2023, and carried the viral video. The voice-over narrates the context of the fight, which is the same as the tweet by the Sun News. It states that BJP member S S Subaiah and his supporters attacked BJP IT division secretary Rajesh.

Further, we came across a tweet made by the Greater Chennai police under @MeghUpdates’ now-deleted tweet.

The tweet said, “The video pertains to a fight that occurred due to personal dispute between two factions of a political party @ Nanganallur and which happened on 31.07.2023 NOT yesterday. In this regard, a case was registered in the jurisdictional police station and proper legal action was taken”. The police also flagged the viral video as an ‘Old Video’.

Therefore, it is clear from the our findings that the viral video of the BJP IT cell Rajesh Biju being attacked is not recent, it is from last year. The incident took place in the Nanganallur area of Chennai when a dispute broke out between Rajesh and other functionaries of the party. According to reports, one of the men seen assaulting him is Chennai East district BJP general secretary S S Subaiah.

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