Fact-Check: Karnataka Police mock drill video shared as actual terrorist capture; beware

A video from the Hubli bus stand in Karnataka seems to have caught the attention of the residents of the state. In the clip, which is about 15-seconds long, a man can be seen kneeling down with hands behind his head as several policemen surround him, pointing guns to his head. The man has his face covered with a mask and also carries a heavy-looking bag on his shoulders.

As the rather unusual activity took place at the bus stand, a number of people gathered around with many of them trying to record the entire incident on their mobile phones.

The claim

The video is doing the rounds on different social platforms including Facebook and Twitter with the claim that the Karnataka Police captured a terrorist at the crowded bus stop.

"Terrorist at Hubli bus stand... Karnataka state," wrote a Facebook user as he shared the clip while another said, "Terrorist in Karnataka Hubli bus station. Today, the old bus station was reopened to inform the public what the police were doing when militants arrived in the public space."

As the footage was circulated by multiple social media users, it simultaneously garnered thousands of views across different online platforms and went viral.

Fact-Check

International Business Times, India, resorted to verify the claim and found it to be false. The video is actually of a mock drill conducted by the Karnataka Police to spread awareness amongst the locals and prompt them to stay alert when in a public place.

We took several screengrabs from the viral video and conducted a reverse image search which led us to several media reports about the mock drill carried out by the Hubballi-Dharwad Police and emergency workers.

Hubballi Times and News 18 Kannada published stories on the praiseworthy initiative by the Hubli cops on August 22 and August 23 respectively. The reports also carried a longer version of the video of the mock drill. A similar exercise was also conducted at the Hubli airport.

Below are the screenshots of both the reports:

Thus, we hereby conclude that the clip of a mock drill at Karnataka's Hubli is being shared with the false claim that a real terrorist was nabbed by the cops.