By Srijit Das
A video of a group of people vandalising a stage has been circulating on social media with a false claim that it shows a recent protest by farmers against Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini amidst the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.
BOOM found that the footage shows an incident from 2021, when a group of agitated farmers staged a violent protest against the then Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar in Karnal, opposing the Centre’s three farm laws.
The video shows of a group of people vandalising a stage with sticks, tearing down posters, hurling chairs off the stage and creating ruckus.
The video has been overlaid with a Hindi text that translates to, "Farmers entered and destroyed the platform of Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, the force also ran away, silence in the BJP".
(Original Text in Hindi: हरियाणा के मुख्यमंत्री नायब सिंग सैनी- के पडाल को किसानो ने घुसकर तहस नहस कर डाला, फोर्स भी भाग खड़ी हुई, बी जे पी मे सन्नाटा हिरकने)
Click here view a post and here for its archive.
Click here view another post and here for its archive.
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Fact Check
BOOM went through the replies of the X posts and found comments by several users mentioning that the incident is from an old farmers' protest.
In the viral video, a person can be heard stating that the pandal of the Haryana chief minister is being destroyed while capturing the visuals on camera.
Taking a cue, we ran a related Hindi keyword search and found an X post from January 10, 2021, by ABP News Executive Editor Jagwinder Patial. In the post, a similar video was shared, stating that the farmers had demolished the pandal of the then Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar in Karnal.
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
Furthermore, we made a comparison between the footage in the viral video and the video shared by the ABP journalist. Below are the similarities in the visuals.
We also found several news articles from January 10, 2021, reporting about the incident. The Indian Express covered the incident, published several images of the ruckus stating that Khattar called off his kisan mahapanchayat programme in Karnal when farmers, protesting against the contentious farm laws, dismantled tents and vandalised the stage at the location.
The report states, "Around 100 farmers on Sunday marched towards the helipad in Kaimla village, where Khattar was scheduled to land. Agitating farmers managed to breach six checkpoints and arrived near the helipad. The police had to resort to mild lathi-charge against the farmers. Water canons and teargas was also used but to no avail."
TV9 Bharatvarsh also uploaded a ground report showing visuals of the violent protest on their official YouTube channel. The report can be seen below.
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