Jamia violence: Media misreport wallet as ‘stone’ in student’s hand
Alt News slowed down the video and watched it frame-by-frame. We found that the student was holding a wallet in one of his hands, and a flat object (possibly a phone) in the other
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On February 16, India Today ran
‘exclusive’ footage on the events of December 15, 2019, in Jamia Millia
Islamia (JMI). This was after a CCTV video of police charging students
with lathis inside a reading room went massively viral. The
footage was handed over to the channel by the Special Investigation Team
(SIT) of Delhi police. It was played as ‘authentic’ clip and used to
claim that students entered the reading room with stones in their hands.
FACT-CHECK
The channel claimed that the student was carrying a stone each in both his hands. For the purpose of this fact-check, Alt News used a higher resolution video received from sources. The video is of the same footage played by India Today. Alt News slowed down the video and watched it frame-by-frame. We found that the student was holding a wallet in one of his hands, and a flat object (possibly a phone) in the other.
A
plethora of other news organisations carried the clip and claimed that
the students had stones clasped in their hands. Among the English
outlets were Times of India, Mirror Now, Republic Bharat, Times Now, The Quint and DNA. Some of the Hindi channels were Zee News, Aaj Tak, India TV, NDTV India, News Nation.
Right-wing websites OpIndia and Swarajya carried similar reports.The channel claimed that the student was carrying a stone each in both his hands. For the purpose of this fact-check, Alt News used a higher resolution video received from sources. The video is of the same footage played by India Today. Alt News slowed down the video and watched it frame-by-frame. We found that the student was holding a wallet in one of his hands, and a flat object (possibly a phone) in the other.
Here
is the sequence of events – the student enters the room with a wallet
in his right hand and a linear object (possibly a phone) in his left
hand. At about 10 seconds, he goes out of the frame and comes back at 17
seconds when his right hand is empty. The brown colour wallet is now
visible in his left hand.
Wallet
The wallet is visible in multiple frames, however, is most clear at the 1:22-minute mark when the student stretches out his arm.
Wallet
The wallet is visible in multiple frames, however, is most clear at the 1:22-minute mark when the student stretches out his arm.
Another
clear shot of the wallet can be seen at 2:27 If one notices carefully,
the two brown flaps of the wallet are distinctly noticeable and the gap
in between is darker – a shade of black.
A flat object
The student holds a flat object in his other hand which could possibly be a mobile phone. It isn’t as distinctly noticeable as the wallet and users are advised to watch the complete video in loops to self-analyse. We will attempt to provide a clean screenshot however there are a few pointers worth mentioning – a stone would typically be irregularly shaped. The object held in his hand is symmetrical and flat.
The student holds a flat object in his other hand which could possibly be a mobile phone. It isn’t as distinctly noticeable as the wallet and users are advised to watch the complete video in loops to self-analyse. We will attempt to provide a clean screenshot however there are a few pointers worth mentioning – a stone would typically be irregularly shaped. The object held in his hand is symmetrical and flat.
The video below shows the linear symmetry of the object held in his left hand.
Media
outlets therefore jumped to the police’s defence without a basic
internal analysis. The student who was portrayed as a stone-pelter was
merely carrying a wallet in one hand and a flat object, possibly a
mobile phone, in the other. The same student was earlier falsely claimed
to be the student who was injured in the January 30 shooting.
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