By Sk Badiruddin
A year old video showing a group of people brandishing guns is viral on social media with captions falsely linking the incident to the recent communal violence in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh.
BOOM found that the incident shown in the video is from Bareilly, UP and shows an altercation between people from the same community over meat prices.
Muslims in India have been protesting over the past few days demanding the arrest of suspended spokesperson of Bharatiya Janata Party Nupur Sharma over her reported controversial remarks on Prophet Mohammad. Protests turned violent in parts of West Bengal and Jharkhand on Friday, June 10, 2022, after the weekly prayer. According to news reports, two people died in Ranchi after gun shot wounds during protest over the Prophet row.
Similar protests had rocked Kanpur in UP on June 3. The video has been shared in this backdrop.
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The 14-second-long video shows two people brandishing guns during a spat.
The video has been shared on Facebook with a Hindi caption translating to 'These are the jihadis of Kanpur who were openly firing with modern weapons and police were just fire tear gas shells, their treatment is direct bullets. Once ten or twenty of them are shot, these people will not dare again'.
(Hindi: ये हैं कानपुर के जिहादी जो खुल्लम खुल्ला अत्याधुनिक हथियारों से कर रहे था अंधाधुंध फायरिंग और पुलिस सिर्फ आंसू गैस के ही गोले छोड़ रहीं थी, इनका इलाज हैं सीधी गोली एक बार अगर दस बीस उड़ गए तो फिर ये लोग जल्दी से हिमाकत नहीं करेंगे)
The video is archived here.
The video has been shared widely on Facebook with similar claims. Watch the posts here and here.
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Fact Check
BOOM ran a reverse image search on a keyframe from the viral video with related keywords. We found a tweet sharing the same video in 2021.
The video was posted from the Twitter handle First India News on May 9, 2021. The tweet, in Hindi, translates to 'Firing between two groups of same community over buying mask in #Bareilly. Panic over brandishing illegal weapons in the area, bullets fired in Dhauratanda Town of Bhojipura police station area. CHaos in the area'.
However, after searching news reports about the incident, we realised that the tweet has mistakenly used mask (मास्क) instead of meat (मांस).
The video was also shared on the Facebook page of Jan TV Barielly on May 9, 2021.
What Was The Incident?
Taking cue from the tweet and Facebook post, BOOM did a keyword search with Hindi texts and found that incident was reported by several media outlets.
According to a report published in Bhaskar in 2021, an altercation was reported between Salim Qureshi and Jalees Banjara, both residents of Tanda village in Bhojipura, Bareilly, UP.
The report stated that Salim Qureshi had rented the shop of Jalees Banjara. The altercation reportedly took place after Jalees Banjara accused Qureshi of selling beef at the shop. Qureshi refuted the accusation leading to the altercation which saw brandishing of guns and firing of bullets.
Meanwhile, superintendent of police (Rural) Rajkumar told Bhaskar that the dispute between two parties of the same community was a result of meat prices. A case had been lodged in Bhojipura police station.
The incident was reported on ETV Bharat and Amar Ujala in May, 2021. Read Aaj Tak's report here.
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