As India prepared for national elections, a video of a police training exercise in Indonesia appeared in social media posts that falsely claimed it showed clashes between security forces and farmers competing to march to Delhi in a dispute over prices. of the harvests. The video was, in fact, filmed months before the protests began and shows police in Indonesia’s Sula Islands carrying out a security exercise ahead of the February 2024 presidential elections.
“Today’s real news, the struggle going on in the farmers’ protest is very scary,” says a Facebook Reel in Hindi shared on March 30, 2024.
The video shows a group of people throwing projectiles at security guards dressed in riot gear.
Thousands of Indian farmers riding tractors were protesting on the borders of the northern states of Punjab and Haryana since February 2024 to demand a minimum support price for their crops.
The protest hopes to replicate the year-long siege of the capital’s highways that pressured Prime Minister Narendra Modiled the government to abandon its agricultural reform plans in 2021.
However, farmers remain blocked by police barricades and barrages of tear gas fired or dropped by drones.
The video appeared online ahead of India’s six-week election marathon, which began on April 19.
Farmers’ protests figured prominently in India’s election campaign opposition Congress Party (archived link).
But analysts have long awaited Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party will win against a fractious opposition alliance that includes Congress as its main party.
Indonesian police exercise
A reverse image search found a screenshot of the video Published in Indonesian media outlet Berita Satu on October 12, 2023 (archived link).
The headline in Indonesian reads: “Sula Islands Police Conduct City Security Drill Ahead of 2024 Elections.”
According to the report, police in Indonesia’s Sula Islands carried out the training exercise in the courtyard of the General Election Commission office in Pohea village, North Sanana district, on October 12, 2023, ahead of the presidential elections in 2024.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the clip shared in fake posts (left) and Berita Satu’s image (right) with similarities highlighted by AFP:
A sign in Indonesian visible in the screenshot and video shared in fake posts reads: “City security simulation in the context of 2023-2024 election security in the jurisdiction of the Sula Islands Police.”
Local media outlet Habar Timur cited The Sula Islands police chief said the exercise was aimed at training officers in election security (archived link).
