Fact Check: Video of encounter in Greater Noida shared as that of Azamgarh
A video reportedly of the Uttar Pradesh police with an injured man is doing the rounds of social media with the claim that the cops shot and injured the man who threatened to remove a Durga puja pandal in Azamgarh.
By Tejal Sinha Published on 7 Nov 2021 12:36 PM IST
Hyderabad: A video reportedly of the Uttar Pradesh police with an injured man is doing the rounds of social media with the claim that the cops shot and injured the man who threatened to remove a Durga puja pandal in Azamgarh.
Twitter users are sharing the video with the caption, "UP police welcome #Adil who threatened to remove a Durga puja pandal at gunpoint in Azamgarh. This is not Bengal but Uttar Pradesh where it's not the rule of Mamta but our Baba."
Click here and here to view the viral post
Fact Check
The claim is misleading.
NewsMeter performed a Google reverse image search of a screengrab from the viral video which directed us to a YouTube video uploaded by News Kranti India on 17 October. It said an encounter took place between Beta 2 police and the 'Screwdriver' gang of Greater Noida.
TV9 Hindi had also reported the incident on 18 October in a report titled "Delhi NCR: Big success for Greater Noida police! 'Screwdriver gang' caught, 4 crooks arrested in encounter". According to the report, "An encounter took place between the miscreants and Beta 2 police near Chuharpur Underpass in Greater Noida. During this, several rounds were fired from both sides." Four gang members were injured during the exchange of fire. The police sent the injured persons to the hospital for treatment.
The Noida Police Commissionerate had tweeted about the incident on 17 October. It said the gang used to rob people on the pretext of giving them a lift.
The NewsMeter fact-check team tried to find out whether there was an incident of hooliganism in Azamgarh. We ran a keyword search and found a few reports.
According to a report published on the India TV website on 16 October, a man identified as Adil Ahmed aka "Mantu" entered a Durga pandal in Azamgarh with a gun and threatened to kill the people who put up the pandal.
Shalabh Mani Tripathi, the media advisor to the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, had tweeted of the incident on 14 October.
The Azamgarh police, too, had tweeted that the police had arrested the man for waving illegal firearms at a religious place under the Tarwa police station.
It is therefore evident that the claim made through the viral post is misleading. Two different incidents have been linked to each other in the viral post. A video of an encounter that took place between the notorious 'Screwdriver' gang and the Beta 2 police in Greater Noida is shared with the incident of a youth threatening a Durga puja pandal in Azamgarh.
