Old, Unrelated Clips Shared as ‘UP Police Thrashing Man for Assaulting Calf'
The videos are unrelated. The man in the second video was beaten by UP police over mobile theft allegations.
Fact-Check | The two videos are unrelated and being shared with a false claim.
(Photo: Altered by The Quint)
A set of two videos - one of which shows a man assaulting a calf and the other shows several police personnel beating a man - is going viral on the internet.
What are users claiming?: People on social media have shared the videos with a caption in Hindi, which loosely translates to, "Eight days ago he had posted the video of calf twisting its neck, today Yogiji's UP (Uttar Pradesh) police posted his video."
(Note: We have refrained from adding any archives due to the distressing nature of the clips.)
The video is going viral on social media platforms.
What is the truth?: The two videos are unrelated and are being shared with a false claim.
The clip showing a man assaulting a calf could be traced back to at least March 2022.
The second one – of policemen thrashing a boy – is from May 2021, and shows police personnel beating minors in Uttar Pradesh's Chandauli over allegations of mobile theft.
Man assaulting a calf: A reverse image search led us to the same video uploaded on an Instagram page named 'Tedthestoner'.
It was uploaded on 23 March 2022 and its caption mentioned that the location and the person have not been identified.
It further criticised the person and said that such kind of cruel behaviour against animals cannot be tolerated.
The post was uploaded in March 2022.
Policemen assaulting a boy: The Quint had previously debunked the video in 2022 when it was shared with a claim that police personnel were beating a boy for raising pro-Pakistan slogans.
A news report in Amar Ujala published on 2 May 2021 mentioned that three minor boys were beaten by police personnel over mobile theft allegations in Uttar Pradesh.
The incident took place in Mathela village which comes under the jurisdiction of Balua police station.
After the video of the incident went viral, Superintendent of Police Amit Kumar took note of it and suspended the in-charge of the Kailawar police station and a constable who were seen beating the minors.
The article was published in May 2021.
Further, we found a tweet posted on the official Twitter account of Chandauli Police.
It was posted on 2 May 2021 and said that two police personnel were suspended for their "inhumane behaviour" against the minors.
The minors were allegedly caught stealing inside a shop.
Conclusion: While we could not independently verify the details of the video of a man assaulting a calf, it is clear that both videos are unrelated and the viral claim is false.
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