By Anmol Alphonso
A video from Manipur of Meitei women's group - Meira Paibis - chasing away personnel of the Mahar Regiment while protesting against the deployment of security forces, is being shared on social media with the false claim that two Indian army soldiers were killed by a group of women when they attempted to molest them
BOOM found that the claim is false, as the video is unrelated, and there has been no reported allegation of molestation against the soldiers, nor any report of soldiers being beaten to death, as claimed in the viral post.
In the 19-second video, a group of women can be seen pushing and chasing away two security personnel. The video was posted on X (formerly Twitter) by the handle Ironclad (@NavCom24) with the caption, "BIG BREAKING: 2 Indian Army soldiers were beaten to death in Manipur when they tried to molest a group of women who were working in the nearby fields. Funniest part is that the whole unit ran away from the incident site!"
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The same video is also being shared on Facebook with the false claim.
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Also Read:Video Of Gangrape In Bengaluru In 2021 Falsely Shared As Manipur
FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the incident in the viral video is from January 2, 2024, when the Meitei women group - Meira Paibis of Ithai Loukon in Manipur chased away personnel of Mahar Regiment as they were protesting against the deployment of security forces.
We ran a keyword search and did not find any credible reports on any such incident of two army men being killed by Meira Paibis for molesting women as being claimed in the social media post.
We then broke the video into key-frames and ran a reverse image search using Google, which search results showed that the viral video dates back to January 2, 2024, and was uploaded on YouTube with the caption, "MEIRA PAIBI vs INDIAN ARMY".
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We also found another video uploaded on YouTube on Janaury 2, 2024, shot from a different angle, posted with the caption, "Meitei meira paibi KASUBI fighting with Assam rifles viral video #indianarmy"
Meira Paibis is a Meitei women group that has been protesting the Indian army deployment in the state and has been accused in egging on ethnic violence against Kuki-Zo women in Manipur.
Taking a hint from this, we then ran a keyword search with the words, "Meira Paibis + Manipur + Army", and found several news reports from Manipur on the incident, which reported that Meira Paibis of Kumbi have demanded cancellation of the FIR filed by Manipur police against Ithai Loukon Meira Paibis for chasing away personnel of Mahar Regiment on January 2, 2024.
The incident was reported by several Imphal and valley based news organisations - Imphal Free Press, The Sangai Express and E-Pao, Ukhrul Times. Imphal Free Press reported on January 6, 2024, that Manipur police has filed an FIR against 12 meira paibi of Wangoo Sagang, Bishnupur district.
The Sangai Express reported on January 5, 2024, that Meira Paibis of Kumbi had demanded cancellation of the FIR within three days that was filed by Manipur police against Ithai Loukon Meira Paibis for chasing away personnel of Mahar Regiment on January 2.
We also found the same viral video being reported by YouTube channels on the Meira Paibis chasing Army personnel. None of these reports mention any details about the Army personnel getting killed or any incident of molestation as claimed in the viral post.
