Video From Prison in Sri Lanka Shared as Detention Camp in Assam

A viral video on social media is being shared with a claim that it shows police brutality in Assam’s detention camps.  

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

CLAIM

A video doing the rounds on social media is being shared with a claim that it shows police torturing detainees at a detention camp in Assam. In the video, cops can be seen brutally thrashing people.

The video is being widely circulated on Facebook and Twitter with the same claim.

We received a query regarding the video on our email helpline.

TRUE OR FALSE?

We could verify that the video is being shared with a misleading claim. It is from a prison in Sri Lanka and not from Assam’s detention camp.

WHAT WE FOUND

After conducting a reverse image search using key frames, we were directed to various news reports which suggested that the video is from a prison in Sri Lanka.

According to a report by Asian Mirror, the video is from January when a committee to protect prisoners released several videos demonstrating how the police and prison guards carried out an attack on prisoners who staged a protest within the Agunakolapelessa prison premises.

We also conducted a key word search using relevant terms like ‘Prison guards attack prisoners in Sri Lanka’ and came across similar news reports by Daily Mirror and Asia Times.

According to Daily Mirror, the CCTV footage from the prison was leaked in January 2019, after which the CPRP had lodged a complaint with the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and handed over a DVD copy of the visuals to them, demanding a criminal inquiry and prosecution of the prison officials involved in the assault.

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