NEW DELHI, 03 December, 2020, (TON): Twitter has labelled a tweet by the IT head of India's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as "manipulated media".

In the tweet in question, Malviya responding to a post by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. Gandhi had tweeted a photograph showing a policeman wielding his baton against a protesting elderly farmer.

In response, Malviya on November 28 posted a "propaganda vs reality" video purporting to show that the farmer was, in fact, not hit by the police baton, The Hindu reported. In the accompanying caption, he said "Rahul Gandhi must be the most discredited opposition leader India has seen in a long long time."

But fact-check websites contradicted the BJP leader's claim, saying he had posted a cropped video. Alt News shared a longer version of the video which showed two policemen swinging their batons at the farmer one after the other. Malviya’s video showed only the second cop whose baton missed the farmer.

"Amit Malviya shared a few seconds of a clipped video to suggest that the elderly farmer wasn’t hit. This was an attempt to water down the force used by police against the protesters. It must be pointed out that whether the baton touched the farmer or not is irrelevant. The video was shot at a time when large numbers of protesters had broken police barricades and the cops were retaliating with lathi-charge and tear gas," the news outlet said in a report.

Twitter subsequently labelled the tweet as "manipulated media", saying the video shared by Malviya was edited, according to fact-check websites.

Earlier this year, Twitter had announced it would begin enforcing a policy against manipulated content, including from politicians, starting March 5.