Video Editor: Sandeep Suman
A viral video on social media claims to show a live operation being carried out by the Bharuch Police in Gujarat, wherein they arrested an accused in the Delhi riots case. The claim stated that the accused had been identified as one 'Siraj Mohammad Anwar'.
However, we found that while the video is indeed from Gujarat, but the operation was carried out by Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) and the accused had been identified as Kishor Luhar, who was wanted in different offences, but is not linked to the Delhi riots case.
Further, in a separate incident, the Bharuch Police did arrest a man named Mohammad Siraj Anwar under the Arms Act, but he, too, isn't linked to the Delhi riots case.
CLAIM
The claim along with the video reads: "लाइव फुटेज
दिल्ली दंगे में आरोपी सिराज मोहम्मद अनवर को क्राइम ब्रांच ने गुजरात से दबोचा"
(Translated: Live footage. Crime branch in Gujarat has arrested Siraj Mohammad Anwar, accused in Delhi riots case)
You can view the archived version here.
(Source: Facebook/ Screenshot)
The video shared by the Facebook page, 'Politics Politics', had garnered over two lakh views at the time of writing the article.
Several social media users shared the video on Facebook and Twitter with the claim that the Bharuch Police arrested an accused in the Delhi riots case. The archived posts can be viewed here, here and here.
The Quint received multiple queries on the claim made in the viral video on its WhatsApp tipline as well.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We divided the viral video into multiple keyframes using InVid and reverse searched each of them that led us to a YouTube video uploaded on Friday, 2 July. The hashtags mentioned in the caption of the video suggested that it is from Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
We then searched on Google with relevant keywords and came across a The Times of India report that carried the viral visuals and mentioned that the Ahmedabad's crime branch had nabbed a person from an eatery.
The article published on 1 July, stated that the accused, Kishor Luhar, was allegedly involved in robbery and rape, among other offences and was captured from a restaurant at Amarpura village in Gujarat's Patan district.
The Indian Express, too, carried the viral visuals in an article that mentioned that the CCTV footage showed officers of the Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) catching hold of the accused on 27 June.
The article further mentioned that the accused was wanted in crimes related to several police stations in Ahmedabad, Banaskantha, and Rajasthan. According to the police, the cases against the accused include armed loot, vehicle theft, extortion, house break-in assault, and rape.
We then spoke to Chaitanya Mandlik, deputy commissioner of police (crime), Ahmedabad, who said that claim along with the viral video is false and confirmed the identity of the accused as Kishor Luhar.
"The viral video is from Patan. The accused is not linked to the Delhi riots case. He was wanted in several different cases."Chaitanya Mandlik, deputy commissioner of police (crime), Ahmedabad
WHAT ABOUT THE MAN ARRESTED BY BHARUCH POLICE?
We searched on Google with relevant keywords and came across a The Indian Express article from 30 June that mentioned that the Bharuch Local crime branch (LCB) officials had arrested one, Siraj Manzur Alam Ansari, under the Arms Act.
The article further mentioned that the police had seized two pistols and 19 cartridges from him.
On 29 June, Bharuch Police had tweeted a press release, corroborating with the aforementioned details and identified the accused as Mohammad Siraj Anwar, alias Siraj.
Also, there was no mention of Delhi riots in the entire press release. We then spoke to Bharuch LCB police inspector JN Zala who said that the viral video is not related to the Bharuch case, rather it pertains to another case and the visuals are from Patan.
Regarding the accused being linked to Delhi riots case, he said, "So far, no such link has been established in the investigation. We have not found any relation between accused and the Delhi riots case yet. Anwar was arrested after we seized weapons from him."
Evidently, social media users falsely claimed that the video showed Gujarat Police arresting an accused in the Delhi riots case.
(With inputs from SM Hoax Slayer)
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