Several protesting farmers were detained at the Punjab-Haryana border while attempting to head towards the national capital. Their march embarked from Fatehgarh Sahib after negotiations over legal guarantees for MSP for crops, loan waivers, and other concessions, failed.
Amid public concerns over traffic disruptions, a video of an older woman screaming at protestors in Punjabi has gone viral. An X user shared the video and wrote, “Punjab Public is fed-up with daily blockades. An older lady from Punjab breaks down, slams andolanjeevi farmers: ‘Your Demand never ends, You want everything for free, The Centre is giving you so much for free’,” alongside hashtags related to the “Delhi Chalo” march.
Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Sadhvi Prachi also shared the viral video with a similar claim.
India Today fact check found that the viral video dates back to November 2022 and is unrelated to the farmers’ protest. The sit-in was called by petrol pump owners in Patran, Patiala, following a financial dispute and non-clearance of dues.
Our probe
The woman in the video expressed her discontent with the protestors and questioned the necessity of daily blockades when many of their demands had supposedly been met. She also expressed anger at the inconvenience caused to commuters by such frequent disruptions.A keyword search led us to Facebook posts from November 2022 which also attributed the woman’s outburst to blockades caused by farmers. This proved that the video was not related to the ongoing protests.
Where did this happen?
In the video, we noticed a bus with a signage reading “Jagdambey”. A search of travel companies by this name operating out of Punjab led us to the Facebook account of “Jagdambay Bus Service”. The signage design of the buses listed on this page matched with the bus in the viral video.
Subsequently, India Today reached out to Keshav Kinker Singla, the operator of the bus service. He said that the footage showed a protest called by petrol pump owners on November 3, 2022, adding that it was not a farmers’ protest.
Singla explained that the protest was organised outside a petrol pump that he owns in Patiala. He said he was present during the protest and confirmed that the woman in the video was a passerby who was frustrated by the blockade. He added, however, that a few farmer union leaders who were passing by also sat in solidarity with them.
Further, he shared a video news report, containing statements of the police and agitators, that corroborated the protest’s cause — a financial dispute between petrol pump owners and a liquor shop proprietor.
The first stir of the farmers’ protest lasted from November 2020 to September 2021, predating the viral incident by almost a year. The second wave of the protest began on February 12, 2014. Thus, it’s clear that the viral video has nothing to do with either.
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