CLAIM
A video which shows a few people as well as a priest thrashing a cop has been shared on social media with the claim that the priest’s followers did so as the cop had taken action against him for violating the lockdown imposed due to coronavirus outbreak.
The claim says: “Lock down ke against me Pandit ji par police ki karwai par Pandit k bhakton ne kanun apne haat me lekar uniform me Police wale ki pitai kar diye. Inpar action Lena chahiye ya nahi?(sic)” (When police took action against the priest for violating rules of the lockdown, his followers took law in their own hands and beat up the cop. Should action be initiated against them?)
TRUE OR FALSE?
The Quint can confirm that the claim with which the video has been circulated is absolutely false.
The aforementioned video has been clipped from a video uploaded on a YouTube channel called CWE (Continental Wrestling Entertainment) which is owned by Indian wrestler, The Great Khali and defines itself as “the first Indian Wrestling Entertainment Academy.”
WHAT WE FOUND
A first look at the video raised certain doubts as it looked staged and clipped. Hence, using one of the keyframes, we conducted a Yandex reverse image search. That directed us to a longer version of the video uploaded on a YouTube channel called CWE in June 2019.
The video was titled, “Singham Dubey Interrupt Shastri While Doing Puja.”
Next, we wanted to ascertain if the video was from a real incident, or it shows a choreographed sequence for entertainment purposes.
For that, we went through other clips uploaded by the channel and found that Singham Dubey is a fictional cop character who features in multiple other videos.
Hence, a clipped version of a YouTube video, choreographed for entertainment purposes, is being used to claim that followers of a priest beat up a cop during the nationwide lockdown.
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