Old image from Rajasthan goes viral linking to the recent protests against Waqf Act in Bengal

This is an old image from Rajasthan and it dates back to 2016.

An image of a young man assaulting a traffic police officer by grabbing his jaw, is going viral on social media with the claim that it shows the violence seen during the protests against the Waqf Act in Bengal.

The caption of the post states, “Jaw movement examination of a Kolkata Police officer by a trained dentist from Dhaka”.

Let’s check the truth.

Facebook Post| Archive link

Fact Check- 

We started our investigation by conducting a keyword and reverse image search on Google and we found the same image in a newspaper article which is being shared on social media since 2020. According to the newspaper clipping, an angry street hawker manhandled a traffic head constable after he was discarding the handcarts that were illegally placed near the streets of Ghantaghar, Jodhpur in Rajasthan.

Moving forward, we found news reports regarding this incident from May 2016. According to report, the traffic problem increased due to the movement of handcarts in the Ghantaghar (clock tower) area of ​​Jodhpur. The Jodhpur Municipal Corporation had declared the Ghantaghar area as a no-carrying zone by running a special encroachment drive. Head constable Shobharam had reached there along with his two companions to improve the deteriorating traffic system in Ghantaghar. When he ordered the handcart holders who were obstructing the way to move away from there, they got angry. The vendors gathered and started threatening the police, and then a person grabbed the mouth of the police head constable and uttered abusive words. Later the policemen escaped and left from there.

The Dainik Bhaskar article also states that the incident happened in May 2016 and identified the police personnel as Head Constable, Shobharam.

For further clarification we reached out to Jodhpur Police station, and they clarified to us that this is an old image and the incident happened in 2016.

So, we can understand that an old image from an incident that happened in Jodhpur in 2016 falsely shared linking to the recent protests against Waqf Act in Bengal.

Conclusion- 

Fact crescendo found the claim made along with the viral image to be False. This is an old image from Rajasthan and it is unrelated to the recent protests against Waqf Act in Bengal.