Fact Check: 2019 Anti-CAA Protest Video Linked To Sambhal Mosque Violence

A video going viral on social media (here, here, and here) shows a group of protestors being beaten by men in uniform. The post claims the footage shows a lathi charge during recent protests against a court-ordered survey at the Mughal-era Jama Masjid in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh. Let’s verify the truth behind the video in this article.

The archived post can be found here.

Claim: A video shows a lathi charge during protests over a court-ordered survey at Jama Masjid, Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh.

Fact: The video dates back to 20 December 2019, when the police clamped down on protesters who threw stones at them during the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests at Nakhass Chowk in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. The video is unrelated to a recent protest in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh. Hence, the claim made in the post is Misleading.

A reverse image search of the keyframes from the viral video led to a Facebook post (archived) from January 2020 featuring the same video in better resolution. This 2020 post claims it shows police lathi charge during anti-CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) protests in Uttar Pradesh. A further search led us to a YouTube video from December 2019 with similar visuals linked to police action during anti-CAA protests.

Taking clues from the description in the Facebook post, we conducted a Google keyword search that led us to a news report (archive) published by the Live Hindustan YouTube channel on 20 December 2019, titled “Gorakhpur: Two injured in stone pelting, lathi charge during protest against CAA.” According to the report, police clamped down on protesters who threw stones at them during the anti-CAA protests at Nakhass Chowk in Gorakhpur on 20 December 2019. The video shows the same police lathi charge from a different angle.

Upon comparing the two videos, we observed similarities in the location featured in both the viral video and the news report, which can be seen below.

We confirmed that the location is Nakhass Chowk, Kotwali Road, Miyan Baza, Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, by verifying it through Google Maps Street View.

We also found news reports (here, and here)  that covered the same incident.

Factly had previously debunked the same video, which went viral with false claims of showing an Indian military crackdown on Kashmiris.

To sum up, an old 2019 video from anti-CAA protest in Gorakhpur falsely linked to recent protests in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh.
(This story was originally published by Factly, and republished by NDTV as part of the Shakti Collective)