Old video from Uttar Pradesh shared claiming traffic cop pushes man in Andhra Pradesh

What is the claim?

A user on X (formerly Twitter) shared a video on October 12 of a traffic police constable shoving a man on a bicycle as vehicles part of a convoy passed by. The traffic constable is seen stopping the rider and then pushing his bicycle off the road, causing him to fall down.

This video has been shared with the claim that this happened Andhra Pradesh state government advisor Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy's convoy was passing by and that this video is “an example of the worst rule of the government in Andhra Pradesh.” Reddy is also a top leader of the ruling YSR Congress Party. The post had over 12,000 views at the time of publication (Archive here).

Screenshot of the post (Source: X/Screenshot/Modified by Logically Facts)

However, the video is not from Andhra Pradesh.

What did we find?

Punjab Kesari's watermark is overlayed on the video. Punjab Kesari is a Hindi newspaper that operates mainly in North India. A keyword search led us to various news reports that indicated that the video was from Uttar Pradesh. 

Jan Satta, a Hindi newspaper under the Indian Express group, carried a report on September 1, 2023, with screenshots from the video. It reported that a cycle rider was pushed by a traffic constable while a convoy of the Deputy Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh was passing by. The report identified the location of this incident as Mau, a district in Uttar Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh has two deputy Chief Ministers. Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brijesh Pathak. It was not immediately clear whose convoy it was.

In the video we can hear the traffic constable screaming at the rider in Hindi to move out of the way, and then he can be seen pushing the cycle into the adjacent fields, causing the man to fall down. 

The official YouTube channel of Quint Hindi also reported on the incident. 

Both videos show the convoy, a yellow autorickshaw hosting yellow flags, a water trolley, the traffic constable, and the rider. 

Comparison of the viral video and the original video (Source: X/Jan Satta/Screenshots)

One India Hindi, a Hindi news portal, reorted that this video was captured during the bypoll elections to the Ghosi assembly constituency held on September 5, 2023. 

A spokesperson of Samajwadi Party, the main opposition party in Uttar Pradesh, had also posted this video on his X account on September 1, 2023, saying that the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's administration is pushing away the voters of Mau Ghosi, thereby not allowing pedestrians and cycle riders on the roads. 

Screenshot of the post of Manoj Singh (Source: X)

The verdict

A video of a traffic constable misbehaving with a cycle rider in Uttar Pradesh is shared as an incident from Andhra Pradesh. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.