On 10th October, Saturday thousands gathered for a protest aimed at Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. The movement had planned to gather thousands of people at Jantar Mantar in central Delhi, but the area was sealed off by security forces before the demonstration began.
Several protesters were detained by the New Delhi police to thwart the protest. Lighthouse Journalism found several such videos which were claimed to be from the same protest.
However, during the investigation, we found that the visuals were old and unrelated.
Claim:
Video 1:
X user Rama Devi Ganaparapu shared the viral video and claimed that it was from the protest.
Other users are also sharing the same video.
Video 2:
X user Mohammad Faizan Shaikh shared the viral video with claim that video was from New Delhi and recent.
Other users are also sharing same video.
Video 3:
X user PMF News shared a viral video stating that the post shows visuals from CJP protest.
Other users are also sharing same video with similar claims.
Investigation:
Video 1:
We first extracted keyframes from the viral video and ran a reverse image search, this led us to a clear video uploaded on TikTok, which we accessed by using a VPN.
We zoomed in on the video, there was a shop front which said, “Shann Gadget”. We also found a banner, which said, “Diyandi Festival sa Ilpan”. We searched these words through keyframes.
We found that Diyandi Festival sa Iligan is a month-long annual cultural and religious celebration held every September in Iligan City, Lanao del Norte, in Philippines, in honor of its patron saint, St. Michael the Archangel (Señor San Miguel).
We then searched the place through Google maps, for Shann Gadget.
We found the exact place where the video was filmed, hence the video is not from New Delhi but from Philippines.
Video 2:
We started the investigation by running a reverse image search on the visuals obtained from the viral video.
We found a similar visual in a report about farmers’ protest from 2021.
We found similar such reports, that suggested that the viral video is from farmers’ protest.
Video 3:
We started the investigation by running a reverse image search on the keyframes obtained from the video.
We found the same video uploaded on 20th July 2026.
The Delhi Police had also commented on a user’s profile stating that the video was old.
Hence, an old video was being used as recent from CJP protest.
Conclusion: Old and unrelated videos are being widely shared as recent from CJP protest at New Delhi on 10th October. The viral claim is misleading and viral visuals are either old or unrelated to the current event.
