By Archis Chowdhury
A disturbing video going viral on social media, showing a stone-pelter being hit by an explosive, is being shared with the claim that it shows Indian security forces in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir shooting back at a stone-pelter, after he attempted to throw stones at them.
BOOM found this claim to be false; our fact-check revealed that the video originates from Bolivia, and shows a Bolivian coca farmer accidentally detonating a dynamite in his hands during recent clashes with Bolivian authorities.
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The viral video shows an individual emerge from a group and throw an object, following this the individual is seen getting hit by an explosive. One of the Facebook posts sharing this video had the following Hindi caption:
"जम्मू कश्मीर में एक पत्थरबाज ने फोजी के पत्थर मारा फोजी ने पत्थर का जवाब गोली से दिया. जय हिंद"
(English translation: In Jammu and Kashmir, a stone pelter hit a soldier with a stone, the soldier replied to the stone with a bullet. Jai hind)
Click here to view the above post.
You can find similar posts on Facebook here and here. A similar post was also shared on Twitter.
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BOOM also received this video for verification on its Helpline and Tipline numbers.
Fact-Check
BOOM ran some keyframes from the video through Google reverse image search, and was led to a few articles about a coca farmer in Bolivia, who accidentally blew himself up with a dynamite while clashing with Bolivian authorities.
One such article was published by an obscure website called USA Crime, which wrote that the person getting struck by the explosive is Plácido Cota - a coca grower, who was seen confronting the Bolivian police in the neighbourhood of Villa El Carmen in the country's administrative capital La Paz.
Taking cue from this article, we did a few Google searches with Spanish keywords like "placido cota dinamita video", was led to a series of articles in Spanish about the incident.
An article by Bolivian newspaper Los Tiempos included a screenshot from the viral video, and stated that Cota was taken of ventilator, after he gained consciousness, but still remained in critical condition due to the nature of his injuries.
Bolivia has been rocked by violent protests in the past weeks, with farmers from the Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca) demanding the closure of parallel markets in Bolivia for the the production of coca plants. Coca - a highly sought-after cash crop in South America, despite a widespread ban on its cultivation - is highly popular around the world for its psychoactive alkaloid, cocaine.
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Madrid-based newspaper La Razon also published an article about the incident involving Cota and the dynamite blast. According to the report, the viral video was shot on August 8, 2022, during clashes between Adepcoca farmers and Bolivian authorities.
