Fact Check: 2022 video from Telangana shared as communal clash from Haryana’s Gurugram
The video is nearly a year old and is from Telangana. It is not related to violence in Gurugram.
By Md Mahfooz Alam Published on 3 Aug 2023 11:26 AM GMT
Screengrab from the Twitter post.
Hyderabad: Ever since communal clashes broke out in Haryana’s Nuh district, which later spread across Gurugram and Mewat areas, social media has been flooded with many old videos of arson, vandalism and violence with misleading claims.
One such video shows a man pelting stones among people in a rally holding BJP flags and the Tricolour has been doing rounds with the claim that the video is from Gurugram, showing the inciting incidents that started the ongoing communal strife in Haryana.
A user shared the video with the caption, “A video coming out from the #Gurugram voilance about how to start a voilance. These morons should be punished very hard as they are playing with the emotions of the peoples and leads to a clash between two factions. #MuslimsUnderAttack #earthquake #Mewat #JammuAndKashmir #Kashmir. (sic)”
(Courtesy: Twitter/@AbdulHa88272737)
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the video is nearly a year old and is from Telangana. It is not related to violence in Gurugram.
On performing a reverse image search of the video’s keyframe, we found it on Twitter, posted by a user on August 24, 2022.
We found that the video was also tweeted by Bharat Rastra Samithi (BRS) leader and Telangana State Mineral Development Corporation chairman Manne Krishank on August 24, 2022. He accused the BJP workers of pelting stones during padayatra on the instructions of then Telangana BJP state president Bandi Sanjay Kumar.
“What sort of Padayatra is this where BJP workers are pelting stones on the directions of BJP State President BS Kumar? (sic)” read the caption.
Location in the video
Then, we analysed the video minutely and found several clues which confirm that the video was from Telangana. We noticed a board with Telugu text, a Telangana vehicle registration code (TS) on a vehicle in the video and a direction board indicating that Suryapeta is 58 km from the location where the video was recorded.
We also came across several news reports from August 2022 which said a clash had broken out between the BJP and TRS workers during the then-state BJP president Bandi Sanjay Kumar’s padayatra in the Jangaon district of Telangana.
NewsMeter could not independently verify the exact location and date of the video from Telangana. However, we found that the video has been on the Internet for at least a year. Hence, we conclude that a video from Telangana has been falsely linked to the current communal strife in Haryana’s Gurugram.
