As protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) continue across the nation, violence was reported in some states. On December 20, Surajit Dasgupta, Founder, Editor-in-chief, Sirf News tweeted an image of police officers with head injuries and claimed, “#ISupportCAA_NRC This is unacceptable. Our custodians are not cannon fodder. This is what the so-called peaceful protesters did to cops in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, ruled by a so-called Fascist party.” It was retweeted over 500 times.

Twitter account @RAC7R also posted the same image along with another photograph of a cop with injuries.

Maar to diya tumne patthar police pe,

Ab police pele to ye mat kehna Modi fascist hai pic.twitter.com/wZCnKph9M2 — Scar (@RAC7R) December 20, 2019

Pankaj Nain from Indian Police Service tweeted the image as well, along with a photograph of people pelting stones at a cop, which was also shared by Vivek Agnihotri.

Similarly, several people have posted the image shared by Surajit Dasgupta on Twitter. Alt News received several requests to fact-check the images on WhatsApp (98252 55790) and on our official mobile app.

FACT-CHECK

IMAGE 1

Alt News ran the image on Google’s reverse image search and found that the image has been in circulation since April 2018. A Twitter user, @hemantp83, had posted the same image on April 4, 2018. The same post was retweeted in 2018 by Vijay Panwar, a Delhi-based Sub Inspector (as per Twitter bio).

The existence of this image since last year is proof that it is not representative of the recent protets against CAA.

IMAGE 2 AND 3

Alt News did a reverse image search on Google and found that the other two images are authentic. The image posted by @RAC7R was used in a December 19 article by India Today. According to the report, the image is from Shah-E-Alam area in Ahmedabad where the violent protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) were reported on December 19. India Today attributed Press Trust of India for the said image.

One of the images shared by Pankaj Nain was used by Times of India in their article published on December 20. According to the report, the is also fromm Shah-E-Alam area. The report states, 12 policemen and at least 16 civilians were injured.

Therefore, the image which shows multiple police officers with a head-injury is from last year, presumably from April 2018 caste protests in Haryana or Uttar Pradesh. This image was shared by Surajit Dasgupta (Founder, Editor-in-chief, Sirf News), Pankaj Nain (Indian Police Service), Twitter user @RAC7R and several others on Twitter.

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