New Delhi: A photograph of a policeman stamping on a man’s face has been widely circulated online with the claim that the former is a Delhi Police personnel. The image is being shared on social media platforms with the hashtag #FarmersProtest, hinting that the incident occurred during the ongoing farmers’ protest against the three contentious agriculture laws.
Many users have tagged the official handle of the Commissioner of the Delhi Police, S.N. Shrivastava, and asked: “Is this thuggery encouraged during police training?”.
The photograph was also tweeted by one Ravinder Singh, founder and CEO of Khalsa Aid — a UK-based international NGO that provides humanitarian aid in disaster areas across the world — with a caption that read: “The reality of @CPDelhi !! Is this thuggery encouraged during police training? #FarmersProtest”
The reality of @CPDelhi !!
Is this thuggery encouraged during police training? #FarmersProtest pic.twitter.com/5mrBgPi022
— ravinder singh (@RaviSinghKA) January 31, 2021
Singh’s tweet has been liked by over 4,500 times and retweeted more than 2,500 times.
Also read: Image of man ‘beaten up by Delhi Police on R-Day’ was taken before farmer protests even began
Fact check
According to ThePrint’s fake news checker, the image is not from the farmers’ protests but from an incident that took place nearly 10 years ago.
The image is of the Uttar Pradesh Police. It was reported that the image is from an incident in 2011, when the then Lucknow DIG, DK Thakur, had pushed former Samajwadi Party leader Anand Bhadauria to the ground and stamped on his face.
In collaboration with SM Hoaxslayer
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Miss Krishnan,
Don’t you think you are missing the forest for trees here. Sure you’ve pointed out one out of 100’s of other pics showing police brutality as being not from Farmers protests. But what about 90-odd others which are from farmers protest? And what about the fact that the pic itself does show brutality in general?
As you point out one incorrect photo, without even mentioning about the hordes of other pics – posted on social media pages of some of the same people you mentioned in your article ,do you think this could be a tad misleading for the overarching theme we have seen from police when someone stands against their political fathers. Time and again we have seen police misuse their physical power over anti govt protests which is the overarching theme in any protest in India.