By Shrey Banerjee
An old video showing a mob vandalising buses in Surat by pelting stones on them has surfaced with misleading claims amidst the communal clashes in Haryana.
According to reports communal tensions gripped Nuh district of Haryana and areas in Gurugram, stoking a riot-like situation. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar as appealed for peace after six lives were lost in the clashes.
The video is being circulated in this backdrop, with the caption, "We pay taxes, they enjoy subsidies and govt patronage as they are "minority". Everything is inverted at the policy level. They should be put into rigorous "de-radicalisation & humanisation" programs. Will be better for us, as well as them. @PMOIndia @HMOIndia @narendramodi” (sic.)
The video shows a group of people hurling large stones at buses parked in the middle of the road.
BOOM had debunked the same video in 2019 when it was viral with claims that Muslim auto rickshaw drivers were protesting in Mumbai's Bandra. Read BOOM's Fact Check here.
The tweet can be viewed here.
The archive of the tweet can be seen here
Fact Check
BOOM ran a reverse image search on the keyframes in the video and found an article and a video by The Quint stating that the incident is from Gujarat’s Surat. According to the report, clashes broke out between the police and protestors from the Muslim community when cops tried to stop the crowd from conducting a rally against mob lynchings.
We observed multiple similarities between the user’s post and video published by The Quint. We compared one of the buildings located behind the vandalised bus.
We also found TV9 Gujarati’s report on this incident which featured similar scenes from the video posted by the user. This video by the media handle is from July 5, 2019, when the incident happened.
Ahmedabad Mirror also reported that two buses were damaged and a closer look at the viral video, one can see two buses - one in the front and other at the back surrounded by protestors.
An ANI report stated that the incident took place in the Nanpura area of Surat when police tried to stop a rally that was being held without a permit. According to the report, more than 4-5 policemen were injured and Section 144 was imposed due to the clashes.
