Fact Check: Video of Police thrashing Namazis got viral with the misleading claim
DFRAC Editor 
A video is going on social media sites in which Police are thrashing people coming out of a building. Sharing the video, a Twitter user gave it a Turkish caption which translates into English as, “Indian Police Beating Muslims Out of Mosque.”
Sharing the same video another social media user wrote, “Why does this Indian police indiscriminately beat Muslims when they leave the Mosque after their prayers? What are their crimes? to be Muslim? Can he do this to those who leave the church or synagogue? It shouldn’t…
#noracism #india #islam #muslim #Islamophobia #stopİndia”
Fact Check
On reverse image search of different keyframes of this video, the DFRAC team found several YouTube Videos and posts having this video. However, those all were from 2020. At that time COVID-19 pandemic hit the whole world. The whole world including India was in a strict lockdown to avoid the virus to spread.
The same video was uploaded by the verified YouTube channel of the Hindustan Times on March 26, 2020. In the description of the video, it was mentioned that “Police has been taking strict action against those violating lockdown orders amid the ongoing coronavirus threat in India. In Karnataka, a cop was seen beating up people exiting a mosque. People had gathered to pray at a mosque in Belgaum when a cop started beating people. The nationwide lockdown has been announced for 21 days amid the coronavirus threat. Social distancing has been advised to people to contain the spread.”
Conclusion
Therefore, it is very clear that the above video is 2-year-old and no communal angle is involved in it. However, in recent times, some social media users are sharing this video with a communal spin.
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