ABVP youth, the real culprit in viral video used to blame Left for JNU violence

That sharing viral videos without verifying facts could be damaging, was evident after a video, touted as the trigger behind the violence at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on January 5, was found to be misleading in nature.

Twitter users including JNU vice-chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar and public broadcaster Prasar Bharti were left shamefaced after it was later found that the attacker was a member of ABVP and was thrashing a member of AISA.

The video which was circulated on social media on Monday, showed a man in red jacket hitting another wearing a green outfit. Social media posts alleged that the attacker was associated with left parties and was hitting a member of the ABVP.

The drama

While Sumit Kumar Singh, a journalist was one of the first to tweet the post, it was soon shared by others including public broadcaster Prasar Bharati.

This triggered clashes in #JNU campus. Students associated with Left parties bashed up #ABVP members when they were facilitating admission process. Students from #Left parties wanted to cancel admission process in #JNU pic.twitter.com/H5dyMRYyig

— Sumit Kumar Singh (@invincibleidea) January 6, 2020

“Video bears witness to JNU VC’s statement that those opposing registration for winter session of JNU are behind violence to scuttle the academic process of varsity,” the news broadcaster posted on its Twitter handle.

The post was retweeted by JNU’s vice-chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar. It was also shared by BJP functionaries and journalists.

Sharing the video on Twitter, ABP News’ Vikas Bhadauria posted, “Leftists first spread anarchy in Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, then massacred in West Bengal. They were finally paid their last respects in 2010. JNU is their last stronghold. Right now, they have spread anarchy, tomorrow they will try to massacre again. If we don’t wake up now, it will be too late.”

The truth

But, later, news website Alt News revealed that the attacker was actually a member of ABVP named Sharvender, a third-year PhD student at Centre for West Asian Studies, School of International Studies. Alt News confirmed his identity with the help of students from Sharvender’s department.

The report also shared a string of photographs including one juxtaposing Sharvender hitting the fellow JNUite with a profile picture of him and others of him with ABVP members.  Sharvender who has deactivated his Twitter account was reportedly unavailable when the news website tried contacting him.

The victim has been identified as Vivek Pandey, a first-year MA student at the university and a member of AISA. When contacted by Atl News, Pandey reiterated that his attacker was Sharvender and that the video was being circulated to peddle a false narrative against the Left.

“The student who is wearing red sweater is Sharvender. He is a West Asia student…In the video, you can clearly see that I’m wearing a green shirt…but they are circulating the video with the opposite narrative,” Alt News quoted Vivek as saying.

The AISA unit of Delhi University also shared the video on its Facebook page.