A video of a man immolating himself in front of a bulldozer, with police personnel present at the scene, is being shared as a video from Uttar Pradesh on social media with users criticising "babaji's bulldozer rule."
An archived version of this tweet can be seen here.
(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)
(Archives of more claims on social media can be seen here and here.)
Is it true?: No, the video is from Patna, Bihar and shows a man immolating himself during an anti-encroachment drive in Patna's Alamganj area on 16 February after protesting his eviction.
Alamganj Police Station's Station House Officer (SHO) Abhijit Kumar confirmed to The Quint that the video is from Patna in Bihar.
How did we find out?: Using InVID, we divided the viral video into multiple keyframes and ran a reverse image search on it.
This led us a report by Hindi news organisation ETV Bharat, which carried a still from the viral video.
It mentioned that the video was from Patna, Bihar in its headline and was published on 16 February.
The report mentioned that the incident happened in Patna, Bihar.
(Source: ETV Bharat/Altered by The Quint)
As per ETV Bharat's report, one shopkeeper in Patna's Alamganj area attempted to immolate himself during an anti-encroachment drive.
We also found an article by the Times of India, which carried the video. This article mentioned that the anti-encroachment drive took place in the presence of police personnel, railway officers and district officials in Patna.
It identified the man as Anil Kumar, a hardware store owner, who was protesting his eviction.
A video report on the incident by News18 Bihar Jharkhand mentioned that Kumar had succumbed to his burns in the ambulance, which was on its way to Delhi from the Apollo Burns Hospital in Patna.
This report showed a board for the same shop as seen in the viral video.
Both videos show the same board for Balmukund Diamond TMT and Bhawani Traders.
(Source:Twitter/YouTube/Altered by The Quint)
The Quint reached out the Station House Officer (SHO) of the Alamganj police station, who confirmed that the video was from Patna in Bihar.
Conclusion: The video of a person immolating himself during an anti-encroachment drive is from Patna, Bihar and not Uttar Pradesh, as claimed.
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