A viral video in which a man can be seen pleading before cops with folded hands is being shared on Facebook with a claim that the man is a famed criminal and former member of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
However, we found that the aforementioned person is a criminal named Naeem and he is not associated with the BSP.
CLAIM
The claim with which the said video is being shared reads: “He is not a beggar but former MP of BSP and a wanted gangster. And this is how he surrendered in front of UP police after they announced a reward over his head. Ye dar accha hai (This fear is good).”
WHAT WE FOUND
We fragmented the viral video into multiple keyframes using the InVid Google Chrome extension and ran a reverse image search on one of the frames. This directed us to a video report by NDTV uploaded on 28 September 2020.
Three minutes into the video, the anchor can be heard speaking about the incident pertaining to the viral video.
According to this report, a criminal carrying a reward of Rs 15,000 on his arrest surrendered to the police in Uttar Pradesh’s Nakhasa police station, with a confession placard saying “don’t shoot me” hanging around his neck, officials said. The report mentioned that the criminal’s name is Naeem.
Next, we searched Google with keywords “Criminal surrenders with don’t shoot me placard in UP” and came across reports by India Today and Times Of India which corroborated details mentioned in the NDTV report.
However, contrary to the claim, none of the reports mentioned that the said criminal was formerly associated with the BSP.
We further went to website of MyNeta — a datbase on election related information in India — and searched for Naeem, who according to the viral video, is a member of the BSP. We found 25 politicians under this name. However, none of them belonged to the BSP.
Clearly, an unrelated video of a criminal surrendering before the cops in UP is being shared with a false claim that the said criminal belongs to the Bahujan Samaj Party.
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