Old Video of Police Thrashing a Man in UP Falsely Shared as From West Bengal

This video dates back to 2014 and has no communal angle to it, as claimed.

A video showing policemen thrashing a man with a stick is going viral to claim that this incident recently happened in Birbhum District, West Bengal.

The claim further states that "a Hindu youth" was being beaten by the police for allegedly organizing a Hanuman Jayanti morning procession.

(Archives of similar claims can be seen here and here.)

What's the truth?: This video dates back to 2014 and is being falsely shared as recent.

• Moreover, there is no communal angle involved in the actual incident.

• According to the West Bengal police, this video is from Uttar Pradesh.

How did we find out the truth?: We performed a reverse image search on some of the keyframes of the viral video and this led us to several old posts.

• One of the posts on Facebook was shared by 'Colors of India' on 26 December 2015.

• We also found another video shared on YouTube on 30 September 2014.

• However, neither of the posts carried more context about the incident.

• We then checked the official social media handles of West Bengal police's fact-check unit (Fact Check: The Truth) and found a post where they had dismissed the viral claim.

• "This claim is entirely false. The actual incident is very old — the video surfaced on social media in September 2014, where it was stated that the incident took place in Uttar Pradesh. This incident has no connection whatsoever with the West Bengal Police or the state of West Bengal," the post added.

Conclusion: An old video from Uttar Pradesh is going viral as a recent video from West Bengal and with a false communal claim.

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