No, This Video Does Not Show Telangana Cops Waving BJP Flags From Police Vehicle

The BJP flag was waved by the party workers sitting inside the police vehicle who had been detained during a protest

Fact-Check | The claim states that Telangana police are waving BJP flags from their vehicle to promote the party.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A video which shows people waving flags of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from a police car is being shared with a claim that the Telangana Police is promoting the BJP in the state by doing so.

The video shows two huge flags of the party being hoisted from the window of a police vehicle in Telangana, which is currently governed by K Chandrashekar Rao-led Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS).

However, we found that the video was shot on 27 March in Telangana's Rachakonda, and showed BJP leaders, who were detained for protesting against the hike in electricity prices, waving the party flag from the police vehicle.

CLAIM

One of the viral posts said, "Telangana State Rachakonda Police's car hoisting BJP flags. Why is the police doing this? Is the police interested in politics as well?"

An archive of this post can be seen here.

Archives of more such claims on Facebook can be seen here, here, and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We fragmented the video into multiple keyframes using InVid Google Chrome extension and then conducted a reverse image search on them using Google.

This led us to a video report published by Zee Telugu News on 27 March 2022.

The report carried a longer version of the same viral video and at 27 seconds timestamp, a BJP leader holding the party flag from inside is visible.

The report stated that BJP leaders from the video were waving party flags from the police vehicle after they were detained for participating in a rally against the government.

BJP leaders holding the BJP flag from the police vehicle.

Speaking to The Quint, Rachakonda police said that the BJP leaders were protesting against the increased prices of electricity in the state.

The police clarified that the BJP leaders were detained and taken to the police station in a police vehicle but they continued their protest by waving the party flag from inside the vehicle.

Evidently, the video shows detained BJP leaders waving the flag from the vehicle and not the Telangana police, as claimed.

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