Soon after protests against Citizenship Amendment Act turned violent in Delhi's Jamia Nagar area on Sunday, many photos and videos of alleged police atrocities have been doing the rounds on social media.
A photo of a policeman apparently stamping on a youth is going viral on social media with the claim that this was how cops treated protesting students of Jamia Millia Islamia. Facebook user "Freeda Nicholas" posted the image and wrote, "Delhi Police, because these students are not nationalists agitating to remove a Muslim professor. These are Jamia students."
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that the viral photo is eight years old and from Hazratganj in Lucknow. It has nothing to do with the Jamia protests.
Till the filing of this story, the post was shared more than 2,600 times. The archived version can be seen here.
We reverse-searched the image and found that it went viral during protests against the 2012 Nirbhaya rape incident as well. However, we could not find any credible media source to verify it.
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As per the article, in March 2011, Uttar Pradesh police arrested former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav at the airport. Samajwadi Party youth and student wing workers were on their way to gherao the assembly to protest the arrest. During the protest, Lucknow DIG DK Thakur pushed Lohia Vahini head Anand Bhadauria to the ground and tried to crush his face under his shoes. Lohia Vahini is the youth wing of Samajwadi Party.
We found some media reports related to the incident.
We also found a Hindi article by OneIndia saying that after Samajwadi Party formed the government in UP in 2012, Lucknow DIG DK Thakur was transferred to Mirzapur.
The same picture went viral earlier this year as police atrocities in the Valley after the Centre scrapped Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir. AFWA had then fact checked the claim.
Therefore, it is clear that the viral picture is eight years old and from Lucknow. It has nothing to do with protests by Jamia students against the Citizenship Amendment Act.
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