Lighthouse Journalism found a video of a lathi charge being shared widely on social media platforms. Police were seen performing the charge. It was claimed that protestors had gathered against the Waqf Bill, and the police officials had performed the charge.
During the investigation, we found that the video is old from 2019 from Gorakhpur, and not recent.
Claim:
X user A. Kumar shared the video with a misleading claim.
Other users too are sharing the video with similar claims.
Investigation:
We started the investigation by uploading the video to the InVid tool. We found the video on Dinesh Agarwal’s YouTube channel.
The video was posted five years ago on 3rd March 2020, confirming that the video is not recent.
Through a reverse image search we also found a post on X, which the user had posted on December 21, 2019.
We then ran a Google keyword search on ‘Gorakhpur, 2019, lathi-charge’. We also set a custom range time and found a few news reports from 2019.
Live Hindustan too had carried the video report.
The visuals of the streets seen in this video were similar to the viral video.
We spotted Maa Vaishno Stationery and Sheetal Cards in the visuals and then searched it on Google Maps. We found the exact location of the shops on Google Maps.
Conclusion: An old video from 2019 from Gorakhpur against CAA-NRC goes viral as recent police action against Waqf bill protestors. The viral claim is misleading.
