By Rohit Kumar
A distressing video of a man being trampled under a tractor trolley is viral online with a false claim that he was a policeman who was crushed to death during the ongoing clashes between police and farmers amid the ongoing farmers' protest.
BOOM found that the claims are misleading, the video is from Sangrur, Punjab and was taken in August 2023 when a protestor died after being run over by a tractor trolley.
Farmers from several Indian states are marching to the capital as part of their Delhi Chalo agitation; calling for a law that guarantees a Minimum Support Price (MSP), among other demands. A third round of talks between farmers and Union Ministers Piyush Goyal, Nityanand Rai, and Arjun Munda has been scheduled as tear gas and barricades have been deployed to restrict protestors from entering Delhi.
Amid this, a video showing a clash between police personnel and farmers where one individual is trampled under a tractor-trolley is viral online as recent. The video is being shared with a sarcastic caption, "The Annadatas crushed the policeman with a tractor, you are requested to please do not defame the Annadatas."
(Original text in Hindi: 'अन्नदाताओं ने पुलिस वाले को ट्रैक्टर से कुचल दिया, आप लोगो से अनुरोध है कृपया कोई अन्नदाताओं को बदनाम न करे।"
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
The video is also being shared on Facebook with a similar caption.
Click here to view the post.
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FACT CHECK
BOOM found that the video is from August 2023 and shows a clash between policemen and farmers in Sangrur, Punjab, where a man died after being run over by a tractor trolley. The video is unrelated to the ongoing farmers' agitation.
A keyword search of the incident on Google led us to a report published by Outlook on August 21, 2023 that detailed how one man died and five others were injured after protestors from a planned demonstration in Sangrur clashed with the police.
The report further detailed that the deceased was a farmer killed by the tractor of another fellow protestor.
Another report by India Today, published on August 22, 2023, carried similar details while mentioning how protestors from 16 farmers' unions had organised the demonstration to demand compensation for losses during floods.
The report included a quote by Sangrur's Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Surendra Lamba, who told PTI that the clashes began after the police refused to let the demonstrators block the Sangrur-Barnala national highway and the Badbar toll plaza.
This report also carried visuals of the clashes that were a match to the viral video.
We also found a post by Sangrur Police's official X handle on the incident that explained how the tractor trolley ran over a protestor and severely injured other policemen as well.
Times Now Navbharat carried a similar video report of the incident on its official YouTube channel on August 22, 2023.
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