Theatrical clip shared as incident where cop was beaten in UP sarpanch’s house for enforcing lockdown

On April 2, reports emerged from Uttar Pradesh that cops enforcing the coronavirus lockdown were attacked at the residence of a village head in Muzaffarnagar district. Five people including the former pradhan (village head) Nahar Singh were arrested in the matter.

Soon after, Twitter user Dr Manish Kumar shared a video of a group of people beating a policeman lying on the ground. “Ex Sarpanch Nahar Singh’s house. When police tried to chide them for being outside,” wrote Singh. This was retweeted more than 500 before it was deleted.

Facebook page Bolta Kishanganj posted the video with the same narrative. At the time of writing this article, it was shared more than 1,700 times.

Old theatrical video

Alt News found that the video is not related to the incident from Morna village but has been clipped from a theatrical video. At 1:30 minutes in the video posted by YouTube channel CWE, one can spot the man playing the role of the cop who was pushed down and beaten by a group of actors playing the role of family members. The video was uploaded on June 18, 2019.

That the video has been shot from different camera angles makes it apparent that it’s a professionally filmed video.

Furthermore, we found many other videos on CWE featuring the same character “Singham Dubey” who plays the role of a cop.

CWE stands for Continental Wrestling Entertainment. The channel calls itself “the first Indian Wrestling Entertainment Academy.” In the past as well, theatrical videos from the same platform have been shared as real incidents (1, 2).

The video is therefore unrelated to cops beaten in UP. According to reports, family members of Nahar Singh, the former village head of Morna village, were standing outside their house and Bhopa police tried to disperse them as per the lockdown protocol. This led to an argument which later transpired into violence against cops. “We have arrested five people, including a former pradhan. They have been booked under different Sections of the IPC, including the attempt to murder. The situation is under control. The policemen have been referred to a Meerut hospital and are stable,” said SP Nepal Singh speaking to The Hindu.