Hundreds of farmers have been camping at the Haryana-Punjab Shambhu border for more than nine months now, disrupting key highways and blocking the vital link between Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, and Jammu and Kashmir.
A video now going viral shows a water tanker running over several women sitting on the road. Sharing this video, many claimed that it was from Haryana. An X user wrote, “The state brutality against female farmers. Remember the symbol, Om. Bulldozer Justice in UP vs Tractor Justice in Haryana.” Its archive can be seen here.
India Today Fact Check found that the viral video is more than three years old and from Amritsar in Punjab, not Haryana.
OUR PROBE
Responding to the viral post, many claimed that this incident was old and from Amritsar, Punjab. Reverse-searching keyframes from the viral clip led us to the same video shared on X on January 28, 2021.
The post read, “2 Old Women were killed & 3 got injured when a tractor ran over them during the tractor parade.” This proves that the viral video is not recent.
A further keyword search led us to an NDTV report published on January 26, 2021. As per the report, a water tanker hit a group of women who were going to join the sit-in being held in favour of the farmers’ protests in Amritsar, Punjab.
The tanker hit five women, two of whom died. Three were seriously wounded. In its aftermath, people thrashed the tanker’s driver and handed him over to authorities. The police later filed a case and took the driver into custody.
We found several news reports published in January 2021 stating how an uncontrolled tanker ran over the women walking in the rally in Amritsar. The tanker seen in the reports also resembles the one in the viral video.
As per Amar Ujala, as soon as the tanker’s driver reached the protesting woman, he lost control of the tractor. The tractor kept moving for several metres, trampling the women. The women who died were Ninder Kaur and Simarjit Kaur, residents of Vallah, Amritsar.
It’s noteworthy that the same video went viral during a farmers’ Republic Day march in Delhi in 2021. At the time as well, India Today Fact Check debunked the misleading claims shared along with it.
Thus, It is clear that a 2021 video of a water tanker running over protesters in Amritsar was falsely shared as a recent incident in Haryana.
(Written by Ashish Kumar)
