By Nivedita Niranjankumar
A video from Sambhaji Nagar (formerly known as Aurangabad), Maharashtra, of a traffic policeman physically assaulting a man at a busy junction is being shared with a false claim that it is from Mumbai.
BOOM found that the video is from 2023 and the incident happened in Sambhaji Nagar of Maharashtra where a uniformed traffic policeperson kicked and beat up a man, allegedly for asking directions in a drunken state.
The video shows a uniformed traffic policepersons stationed below a flyover kicking and slapping a man who approached them and then pushing him away. It is being shared on Facebook and X with a Marathi caption which roughly translates in English to, "Look at the high handedness and bullying of the traffic police. Make it viral so that he understands the arrogance of his duty."
(Original text in Marathi - ट्राॅफिक वाल्याची दादागिरी बघा. ईतके वायरल करा कि त्याला त्याच्या ड्युटीचा घमंड कळायला पाहिजे)
More Facebook posts with the same false claim can be seen here
The video is also being shared on X, with users tagging the official handle of the Mumbai Traffic police demanding action.
The video was also revived and published by news outlets Times Now and Free Press Journal as Mumbai. While the outlets later updated their stories, their headlines and tweets still claim the video is from Mumbai.
FACT CHECK
BOOM found that the video is old, from 2023 and from Sambhaji Nagar (formerly known as Aurangabad) and not from Mumbai.
A reverse image search with specific keywords led us to a news story by Marathi news outlet Lokmat published on May 20, 2023. The story in Marathi titled, "Highhandedness of Traffic police; kicked a youngster at Bharat chowk" and carried visuals from the viral video as the cover image.
The article detailed that the incident happened at Kranti chowk area in Sambhajinagar, a busy and important junction in the city. The story also identified the traffic personnel as police havaldar Pradeep Chauhan and police constable Shah, with the one beating the man being havladar Chauhan.
The story also quoted the area traffic police inspector, Pradeep Kathane, explaining that the youngster was in an inebriated state. The report quoted Kathane as, "The young man was drunk. He wanted to go to Mahavir Chowk. But at the same time he got angry as he had to stop due to the red signal. The primary information is that he approached the traffic police in anger and argued why you stopped the signals." While the police personnel were identified, the report mentioned that there was no complaint registered the officers.
The same incident was reported by another Marathi news outlet Sakal which also carried the video on its YouTube channel on May 21, 2023.
We also found a tweet from the official X handle of the Mumbai traffic police clarifying that the incident is old and not from Mumbai. The tweet also said that appropriate action had been taken against the traffic police personnel seen in the video.
BOOM further geo-located the area and found the exact area below the flyover as seen in the viral video. Below is a screenshot of the geo-located area and the same can be viewed on Google Maps here
