Authors
Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.
Despite the Gujarat Assembly election results declaring a clear victory for the BJP for a record 7th term, social media is still rife with allegations of violations and voter fraud. One such video, shared on Facebook by user Mohammad Moizuddin, alleges that Muslim voters were not allowed to vote during the elections and were assaulted by the police. Newschecker has found that the video is from Uttar Pradesh and not Gujarat.
The video, uploaded in the format of a Facebook reel on December 6, 2022, has garnered over 77.2k views so far.
Fact check/Verification
We began our investigation by conducting a keyword search on Google with the keywords “muslim woman not allowed to vote by police” which threw up several results, all of which pertained to the recently held by elections for the Rampur Assembly constituency in UP. One of the news reports, published by Brut.in, featured the same video that is currently going viral.
“Hands bleeding, police questioning… Muslims in UP’s Rampur said they were stopped from voting at polling booths during the by-elections,” the description of the video read.
The video report also revealed that the Samajwadi Party had released several such videos alleging voter harassment by the Uttar Pradesh Police. Taking this as a clue, we checked the Samajwadi Party’s social media accounts, following which we found the same video on their twitter handle.
“BJP police is harassing the general public! Police mercilessly beat up a young man who went to cast his vote in Rampur. Embarrassing. Election Commission should take cognizance of the matter, the accused policemen should be suspended immediately. @ceoup @ECISVEEP,” the caption of the video read.
We also noticed several such videos uploaded on the twitter account of the party. Many news reports carried the same videos shared by SP on their Twitter account. You can read them here, here, and here.
However, Newschecker was unable to verify the allegations of police preventing and assaulting Muslim voters during the Rampur by-elections.
Conclusion
A video of voters alleging abuse by UP police during the Rampur assembly elections, is being shared as a video of ‘Gunda gardi’ (thuggish behaviour) during the Gujarat Assembly elections.
Result: False
Our Sources
Video report published by Brut.in on December 6, 2022
Tweet by Samajwadi Party on December 5, 2022
Report published by Times Of India on December 6, 2022
Report published by Maktoob Media on December 5, 2022
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Authors
Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.
