Fact Check: Old video of Odisha went viral as being from Andhra Pradesh, officer was arrested

What is the claim?

Lautan Ram Nishad has said in his/her X post that this video is from Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh. he/she expressed concern that how can any officer insult the tricolor! he/she wrote, ‘Such insult to the national flag by an officer is worrying.’

What is the truth?

When we extracted the keyframes of this video from the Invid tool and did a reverse image search, the same video was found on many social media handles. All posts are from the last week of January 2023. That means this video is not fresh but two years old.

Is this video from Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh only? When I searched Google to find the answer to this question, I found out that the name of the person seen in the video is Prashant Kumar Swain, who is the Executive Officer (EO) of Simili Panchayat under Gop block of Puri district in Odisha. Odisha TV In a report published on January 12, 2023, it was said that Swain apologized after the video went viral. he/she said that he/she made a mistake. However, his/her intention was not to insult the tricolor. he/she said, ‘There were many items lying in the office. But what we did was condemnable for which I am sorry. This is my first mistake, I will never do this in future. However, the police arrested him/her under the National Flag Code.

conclusion

In the investigation, it is clear from the news of Odisha TV that it is misleading to attribute the video to Andhra Pradesh. This video is of EO of Simili Panchayat of Odisha. The video is two years old but the X user did not provide this information in his/her post, which creates the illusion that the incident is recent. In our investigation, the claim made with the video is misleading.