Fact Check: Video of langar serving food to Haryana cops is from 2020 farmers’ protest, not 2024

Hyderabad: Amid the ongoing farmers’ protest against the Centre at Shambhu border near New Delhi for a legal guarantee for MSP and other demands, a video of Sikh youths feeding langar to police is being widely circulated on social media.

“Don’t worry about feeding them, the farmers will take care of that before they arrive. #farmerprotests2024 #FarmersProtest #Bitcoin #FarmersProtest2 #FarmersProtest2024 (sic)” wrote an X user after sharing the video.

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Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the video is from 2020 when a gurdwara organized a langar to feed the police force on NH 1 Karnal, Haryana during the 2020-21 farmers’ protest on the same issues.

We started our investigation by performing a keyword search and found the same video uploaded by an X user on November 29, 2020, with the caption, “Indian police forces eating food (Langar) prepared by the farmers who are protesting in Delhi against farmers laws. #FarmersDelhiProtest #farmers #standwithfarmerschallange #StandWithFarmers #delhiprotest #PunjabFarmers #punjab #sikh #DelhiChalo #FarmerProtests #SaveFarmers (sic)”

This makes it clear that the video is not recent.

A further keyword search led us to media reports on NDTV, DNA India and Jagran carrying the stills from the viral video dated November 28, 2020.

According to the NDTV report titled ‘As Farmers, Police Face Off In Delhi, Haryana Religious Centre Feeds Cops’, the video is from a farmers’ protest march, where farmers from several states including Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab begin marching towards Delhi. Amidst the farmers’ clash with police over their March to Delhi this video emerged from Haryana’s Karnal where the langar of a religious centre served a scrumptious meal to a large number of policemen at National Highway 1. The report also added that it is unclear whether the religious centre was connected with the protesting farmers.

Moving forward, we also found the same video uploaded as a video report on the YouTube channel of NDTV with the description, ‘Amid scenes of violence as farmers clash with police over their protest march to Delhi against the farm laws, a heart-warming video has emerged from Haryana’s Karnal - where the langar (community kitchen) of a gurudwara served a scrumptious (and free) meal to a large number of policemen.’

Hence, it is evident that the video is old and being resurfaced with misleading claims.