Man With CJP’s Ranka Is Not the Same One Who Called for ‘Nepal-Style’ Violence

The two men were identified as Saurav Singh and Vijay Sherawat, who are not the same person.

Social media users are sharing a set of visuals to falsely claim that the CJP is working with people who called for 'Nepal-style' violence in India.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

Social media users are sharing visuals of Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) spokesperson Ashutosh Ranka, along with some party members after they were attacked near a school in Rajasthan.

• Those sharing this image have highlighted a bearded man in the background, sharing it alongside a video of a man calling for 'Nepal-style violence' during a protest march.

The claim: The visuals are being shared to claim that the person who called for violence is the same man seen with Ranka, with those sharing the claim accusing the CJP of working with 'goons' who threatened violence.

• Among those sharing the claim was X user Vijay Gajera, whose post gathered over 8.7 lakh views at the time of writing this article.

An archived version of this post can be seen here.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

(Archived versions of more posts sharing this claim with these visuals can be seen here, here, here, and here.)

Is it true?: No, the claim is false.

• We were able to identify the CJP member with Ranka as one Vijay Sherawat, while the person calling for violence was identified as one Saurav Singh.

How did we find out the truth?: We looked for clearer visuals of the person with Ranka, which we found by carrying out a reverse image search of the screenshot.

• We came across an X post by news agency ANI, which had shared a video carrying Ranka's statement shortly after their team and vehicles had been attacked by people in Rampur, Rajasthan.

• As this was a clearer version of the visual shared in the claim, we were able to compare this person's face and the person in the video being shared along this one.

• One can see that they are not the same person.

They are not the same person.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

Who are they?: We went through Ashutosh Ranka's social media accounts to see if he had shared a post with, or tagged the person in the viral claim in any of his posts.

• On Instagram, we came across a video which was shared as a collaboration between Ranka and one Vijay Sherawat.

• Sherawat had shared a video debunking another version of claim himself, noting that he was not the person calling for violence in the viral video, calling the man an "anti-social element."

• He called on people to be alert and verify the content they came across, and not blindly believe what they see on the internet.

• While trying to identify the other person, we came across another post by Gajera, who had initially shared the false claim, who provided an 'update' with the identity of the man.

• He said that the person who wanted 'Nepal-style riots' as one Saurav Jatav from Uttar Pradesh's Hathras, sharing screenshots of his Instagram account.

• When we looked for this account, which mentioned the man's name as Saurav Singh and had the username 'saurav_indian__', we came across a video resembling the clip in the viral claim.

• This video showed Saurav participating in a rally, similar to the video being shared in the claim.

On comparing this man's visuals to the person seen in the viral video, we were able to establish that the person calling for 'Nepal-style' violence was indeed Saurav Singh.

The person seen in both videos is the same man.

(Source: X/Instagram/Altered by The Quint)

Conclusion: Social media users are sharing a set of visuals to falsely claim that the CJP is working with people who called for 'Nepal-style' violence in India.

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