• A

    20 Minutes

    reader 

     asked the "Fake Off" section to verify the authenticity of a video according to which Indians had violently chased the anti-Covid-19 vaccination teams from their village.

  • According to local media, police were actually trying to end a rally of several hundred people as the Covid-19 epidemic rages on in India.

  • "This video has nothing to do with vaccination," local police told

    India Today.

Have Indian villagers chased away Covid-19 vaccination teams with stones?

As the country is in the throes of a terrible epidemic, a

20 Minutes

reader 

 asked the Fake Off section to verify the authenticity of a video circulating on WhatsApp and social networks.

In this one-minute video, supposedly shot in India, it is possible to observe a crowd violently attacking a few men in beige uniforms and military camouflage.

Under the threat of the protesters, who pursue them and throw stones at them, these men join their vehicle and flee.

According to the person who posted the video, these "villagers saw deadly vaccination teams."

If this statement has been repeated in many international publications, whether on Facebook or on Twitter, the reason for the anger of these villagers is however quite different. 

20 Minutes 

takes stock.

FAKE OFF

Thanks to screenshots of the video and a reverse image search, it is possible to find the context to this footage.

The video was published in an article by Indian television channel New Delhi Television (NDTV) on April 23.

According to the latter, the images were shot in a village in the Indian state of Jharkhand, near the city of Saraikela.

According to NDTV, “a local administration agent and a group of police officers were attacked […] as the crowd indulged in the Mela [the Khumb Mela, a Hindu pilgrimage] in the midst of the murderous second wave of Covid-19 ”.

The police, upon learning that hundreds of villagers had gathered in defiance of social distancing measures, then allegedly tried to put an end to the event.

Without success, as can be seen in the viral video.

Not related to vaccination policy

India Today

's news audit section

 also took an interest in this footage.

Eight people were arrested in the incident, the magazine said.

To find out if health workers or vaccination teams had been targeted,

India Today

questioned local police.

“No other crowd movement was reported during the anti-Covid testing or vaccination phases in Saraikela.

This video has nothing to do with vaccination.

It happened when our agents tried to put an end to this gathering of several hundred people not respecting the sanitary protocol, ”local police told

India Today

.

Last Monday, nearly 370,000 new contaminations and 3,400 deaths were recorded in twenty-four hours, according to figures from the Indian Ministry of Health.

The country of 1.3 billion inhabitants, faced with a second epidemic wave of great virulence and a shortage of oxygen, has identified eight million new infections since the end of March.

An official assessment that many specialists consider to be largely underestimated.

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