Video Editor: Purnendu Pritam
A viral video showing altercation among a group of people is being shared on social media with a claim that it shows protesting farmers thrashing actor Ajay Devgn for supporting the controversial farm laws introduced by the NDA government.
However, The Quint found that this video is from Aerocity near the Delhi airport where a fight broke out between two groups, after one of their vehicles “slightly touched” another. Two men were arrested from this incident.
CLAIM
The claim with which the aforementioned video is being shared reads: “पहले बीजेपी विधायक अब अजय देवगन की धुलाई। ये क्या हो रहा है? भाजपा की धुलाई मशीन खराब हो गई क्या जो जनता इन्हे धो रही है??”
[Translation: After BJP MLA, actor Ajay Devgn thrashed. What is happening? Has the BJP washing machine broken down that the public is now beating them?”
WHAT’S THE TRUTH?
On 3 March, a man stopped and heckled actor Ajay Devgn in Mumbai, allegedly for backing the Centre after it had responded to American pop star Rihanna's tweet on the farmers' protest.
However, there have been no reports of any recent physical fight involving the Bollywood actor. This raised our suspicion and we fragmented the viral video into multiple keyframes and ran a reverse image search on one of the frames.
This directed us to the same video uploaded by India Today on 27 March.
According to India Today’ report, the viral video is from Aerocity in Delhi where a clash broke out between two groups after a car crashed into another.
The same was also reported by NDTV. As per the report by NDTV, two people have also been arrested by the Delhi Police in connection with the case. “Those arrested were identified as Taranjit Singh (31), a resident of Janakupuri who deals in sale and purchase of cars and Naveen Kumar (29), a resident of Chhawla village who is a property dealer. Both of them have no previous criminal history,” the report quoted Police as saying.
Further, in a press statement, the spokesperson of Ajay Devgn’s PR team also rubbished the viral claim. “After January 2020, Ajay Devgn has not visited Delhi. Reports of a brawl involving the superstar outside a Delhi pub are absolutely baseless and untrue,” the statement said.
Reports by other news outlets like The Indian Express and Hindustan Times also corroborated these details.
Clearly, an unrelated video from Delhi is being used to falsely claim that the protesting farmers attacked actor Ajay Devgn for coming out in support of the farm laws.
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