Fact Check: Old video of Ramnavami procession shared with communal angle, falsely linked to Tripura violence
Now a video of a huge mob carrying saffron flags and reportedly protesting in front of a mosque in Amravati, Maharashtra, is being widely shared on social media.
By Tejal Sinha Published on 21 Nov 2021 7:28 AM GMT
Hyderabad: Protests were held in Amravati, Malegaon, and Nanded in Maharashtra on 12 November in response to the Tripura violence which later turned violent, a report by Times Now Hindi from 13 November said. Following this, the police imposed a curfew in Amravati. Several policemen were also injured during the demonstration, the report added.
Now a video of a huge mob carrying saffron flags and reportedly protesting in front of a mosque in Amravati, Maharashtra, is being widely shared on social media. The video has been shared with a communal angle linking it to the violence that took place in Tripura.
Click here, here, and here to view the viral post on Twitter.
The video is being shared on Facebook, too.
Fact Check
The claim is false.
NewsMeter ran a Google reverse image search which led us to a tweet by ANI from 13 April 2019. It said, "Karnataka: Visuals from #RamNavami procession carried out earlier today in Kalaburagi. Muslims were seen distributing juice to the devotees of Lord Ram during the procession."
ANI had also shared four images. We noticed that the photos showed a mosque that looked similar to the one in the viral video. The fact-checking team also noticed a police officer standing on top of the mosque in both the ANI image and the viral video. See below the comparison of the two:
Taking a cue from this, we performed a keyword search which directed us to several videos on YouTube from 2018 and 2019. They proved that the videos were from a Ram Navami procession in Gulbarga, Karnataka. These videos were similar to the viral video.
Click here and here to view the videos on YouTube.
ANI's YouTube channel had also uploaded a similar video on 22 April 2019. It was of a procession taken out during Ram Navami in Gulbarga, Karnataka. A crowd carrying saffron flags along with the idol of Lord Ram sitting on a chariot can be seen passing through a mosque as the devotees sing bhajans. People of the Muslim community can be seen distributing juice to the devotees. Visuals similar to the viral video can be seen at the 12-second mark.
It is therefore evident that the claim that the video shows a mob with saffron flags protesting in front of a mosque in Amravati, Maharashtra, is false. The video shows a Ram Navami procession in Gulbarga or Kalaburagi in Karnataka and is not related to the recent Tripura violence.
