A disturbing video showing a man trapped under a moving tractor during clashes between police and protesters in August 2023 has been falsely linked to the latest farmers’ protests in India. The journalist who uploaded the original video told AFP it showed a clash in the state of Punjab that took place months before the latest protests started. Indian police have also told AFP the clip is not related to the ongoing farmers’ protests.
“Khalistani terrorists so-called farmers crushed a policeman with a tractor,” reads the caption of a video shared on Facebook here on February 13, 2024 — referring to the proponents of the secessionist Khalistan movement demanding an independent Sikh state.
The 28-second video shows turbaned Sikh men holding flags gathered along a road as they evaded a fast-moving tractor which is followed by another one.
A man is trapped under the second tractor as it drives along, while the crowd screams for the vehicle to stop.
The video surfaced as protesting Indian farmers from northern Punjab state heading to New Delhi have been stalled halfway to the capital by a fortress-like wall of concrete set up by the Indian police.
AFP reports officers have ringed the city on three sides, blocking highways with metal spikes, blocks and steel barricades, raking the crowds with water cannons and dropping tear gas canisters from overhead by drone.
The current protests follow the 2021 farmers’ demonstrations, which ended after the Indian government agreed to repeal controversial farm laws that sought to deregulate agricultural markets.
Farm union leaders say the government has not done enough since the last protest to alleviate their hardships. They have also demanded an expansion to the scope of the minimum support price policy — a measure that compels the government to buy some crops including rice and wheat when their price falls below a certain level on the open market to act as a safety net against any losses — to cover all produce.
The same video was shared with similar claims elsewhere on X here and Facebook here and here.
But the video is not linked to the latest farmers’ protest — the journalist that uploaded the original video told AFP it showed an incident from a 2023 protest organised in Punjab’s Sangrur district, which was over 170 kilometres (105 miles) from the Indian capital.
Old Video from Sangrur
A keyword search for Gagandeep Singh — a local journalist whose name appears on the top-right corner of the false video — reveals he uploaded the video on his X account on August 21, 2023 (archived link here).
The video was posted along with a caption that read: “A clash between farmers and the Punjab Police occurred in Sangrur’s village Longowal as they were heading towards Chandigarh to participate in a protest.”
“During the clash, one farmer lost his leg as he came under a tractor trolley tyre & he lost his life during treatment,” it went on to say.
Farmers in the Sangrur district of Punjab held a protest demanding the release of detained farm leaders ahead of planned protests demanding compensation for losses caused by flooding in the state in July 2023 (archived link here).
Singh told AFP he received the clip from a stringer that he sent to cover the protest.
“This is an old video from August 21, 2023. Farmers were coming to Chandigarh for a protest when Punjab police stopped them,” he told AFP. “It’s not related to the present protest. One of our stringers shot it for our local news channel based in Mohali.”
Below is a screengrab comparison of the false video (left) and the video uploaded by Singh (right):
A police official in Sangrur has also told AFP the video in the false post is not related to the latest farmers’ protest.
“This incident is from the Sangrur protest that took place last year and has nothing to do with the current protest march undertaken by the farmers,” Hardeep Singh, additional sub-inspector of Sangrur police station, said on February 12.
Scenes of the false video can also be seen in a video published on the YouTube channel of local news outlet The Tribune on August 21, 2023 (archived link here).
The title of the video reads: “Farmer killed in Sangrur protest, police say run over by rashly driven tractor-trolley.”
Below is a screenshot comparison of the video shared in false posts (left) and the footage published on the official YouTube channel of the outlet (right):
The incident was reported in other local news outlets here and here confirming a protester was killed during the Sangrur protest after being run over by a tractor (archived links here and here).
AFP has also debunked other false claims related to the latest farmers’ protest here.
