Cop Extorting Money from Migrant Caught on Cam? No, Video is Old

The video is from 2019 and it shows an RPF personnel accepting bribe from women bootleggers in Surat.

(Photo: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)

A video which shows a cop taking money from women on railway tracks if being shared with an insinuation that the police officer is taking money from migrants who want to return home amid the nationwide lockdown due to coronavirus.

However, we found out that the video is from July 2019 and it shows a railway protection force personnel in Surat accepting women from women bootleggers.

An archived version of the post can be found here.(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

The aforementioned video, which is being shared with the misleading claim, has been viewed over 4,71,000 times.

CLAIM

The claim in Hindi reads, “सरकार मे रेल मंत्री क्य हो रहा ह देश लूतेरे को तातकात suspend करो” [Translation: What is happening in this country, rail minister? Suspend this person.]

A longer version of this message claims that labourers are longing to go back to their hometowns and the officer in question was seen harassing them.

An archived version of the post can be found here.(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

The video was also shared on Twitter with the same message.

An archived version of the tweet can be found here.(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

On carefully listening to the audio, we recognised that the people in the video were conversing in Gujarati. Taking a cue from here, we ran a search on YouTube with the keywords ‘Gujarat police railway money passengers women’ and came across a video which was uploaded by TV9 Gujarati on 12 July 2019.

According to the description mentioned in the video, this RPF personnel was found accepting money from women bootleggers.

We then searched on Twitter and came across a tweet from Desh Gujarat, a news portal, which also mentioned the same details. This article further stated that the RPF jawan was dismissed from service after the video went viral.

Clearly, an old video is being circulated without context to claim that a police officer is extorting money from migrant workers.

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