Hasanganj police confirmed to Fact Crescendo that the accused involved in this brawl do not hail from any political party. There is no MLA in Mukhtarganj with the name Salim Haider.
A video showing people slapping a police officer on the road is widely circulating on social media. Social media users claim that one of the man attacking the police officer is the Samajwadi Party MLA from Mukhtarganj, Salim Haider along with Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav. This video is widely circulating on social media in the backdrop of the upcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh in 2022.
In the information given with the post, it is written, “This is Salim Haider, SP MLA from Mukhtarganj along with Ram Gopal Yadav. Look how is he slapping a police officer on the middle of the road?”
Fact Check-
We started our investigation by running a keyword search on Youtube, whose results led us to a video published by Aaj Tak on 5 December. The report states that the brawl took place at the Hotel Residence located in Nirala Nagar area of Thana Hasanganj, Lucknow. The report further states that the car of a police officer collided with another car due to which a brawl began. Amidst this, heated argument one of the men slapped the police officer who were later arrested by the police.
According to the North Lucknow ADCP, Prachi Singh, the officer who was slapped is SI Vinod Kumar from Pilibhit who came to Lucknow for some government work. The accused were arrested after the officer filed a complaint against them. One of the accused is 21 years old and a businessperson and the other is a lawyer in Delhi.
Amar Ujala published a news on 4 December stating that the incident took place on 1st of December when a group of men was going for a wedding with the groom inside the car. The groom’s car collided with the inspector’s car and thus a brawl ensued. In the intense argument, the groom along with some of his relatives thrashed the inspector and tore his uniform. Upon filing a complaint by the police inspector, the accused were arrested. The police is still searching for the other two men.
Upon reading all, the news report related to the incident we could not find any information that stated that the inspector was beaten up by Samajwadi Party MLA Salim Haider and SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav.
Next, Fact Crescendo contacted the SHO of Hasanganj who confirmed to us “The inspector being assaulted in the viral video had lodged an FIR at Hasanganj police station and we have arrested four men in this matter. The names of the accused are Ashish Kumar Shukla, Pravendra Mathur, Priyank Mathur and Pranjal Mathur. He have found that none of them is associated with Samajwadi Party or any other political party. The viral claim on social media is False.”
No Samajwadi Party MLA named Salim Haider-
Upon a keyword search on Google, we found the list of all the MLAs of Uttar Pradesh on the official website of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly . Upon checking for the constituency named Mukhtarganj, we did not see any constituency with this name in that list.
After that, we searched for the name Salim Haider and we did not see any MLA by this name in the Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha. We also did not find any MLA named Salim Haider on the official website of Samajwadi Party.
Who is Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav?
Ram Gopal Yadav is a Rajya Sabha MP from Samajwadi Party. You can see his picture below. We have taken this picture of him from the website of Outlook.
Conclusion-
Fact Crescendo found the narrative peddled around the viral video on social media to be False.The people who are slapping the police officer in the video are not from the Samajwadi Party or any other political party. There is no MLA named Salim Haider in Samajwadi Party and none of the people seen in this video is SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav.
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Title:Fact Check: Man in the viral video seen thrashing a cop is not an SP MLA…
Fact Check By: Aavya RayResult: False
