(Editor’s note: The story has been republished from The Quint’s archive in light of an image circulating with the claim that it shows a Delhi Police official stepping on a protesting farmer.)
The Delhi Police crackdown on students at the Jamia Millia Islamia University for protesting the Citizenship Amendment Act has triggered massive outrage across the country. Amid the flare up, multiple images are doing rounds on social media to show the cruelty perpetrated by the police on students.
CLAIM
One such image which is doing the rounds shows a police officer trampling on a protester with his boots. The image is being shared with a claim that the aforementioned police official is an IPS officer.
“Is this an IPS Officer? Is this what he has been taught at SVPNA? Shame on Delhi Police. #JamiaProtest (sic),” the caption reads.
TRUE OR FALSE?
The Quint can confirm that this is an old image and is being shared with a misleading claim. The image is from Lucknow and was shot during the protests organised by Samajwadi Party’s youth wing Lohia Vahini against the arrest of party chief Akhilesh Yadav on 9 March in 2011.
WHAT WE FOUND
On conducting a reverse image search we were directed to a news clipping regarding the incident.
According to the news clipping the incident happened during a potests organised by Samajwadi Party in Lucknow’s Hazratganj area. It further identified the police officer as DIG DK Thakur.
Taking cues from there we conducted a Google keywords search using terms like ‘Lucknow DIG DK Thakur Tramples Youth at Samajwadi Party protests’.
This finally led us to a report by a news website called Catch News which detailed the entire incident. According to the report, during the protests organised by the youth wing of Samajwadi Party, the then Lucknow DIG, DK Thakur pushed Anand Bhadauria, the national president of Lohia Vahini, to the ground and tried to crush his face under his shoe.
The Quint also got in touch with Samajwadi leader Anurag Bhadauria who corroborated the details.
“I was present at the protest when this photo was taken. The DIG pinned Anand Bhadauria to ground and trampled him with his boots. A NHRC inquiry was also initiated in the case.”Anurag Bhadauria, SP Leader
We learnt that the lathicharge was so brutal that on the basis of photographs taken at the spot, the National Human Rights Commission had issued a notice to Thakur.
SAME IMAGE VIRAL WITH MULTIPLE MISLEADING CLAIMS IN THE PAST
The same image has also been shared with multiple misleading claims in the past. After the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir, the image was circulated with a claim that it shows police brutality in the valley.
Similarly, it was also claimed that the image is from 2013 when police launched a crackdown on Nirbhaya protesters.
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