Lighthouse Journalism found a video being widely shared on social media platforms. The video featured a huge crowd and it was being claimed along with the video that the crowd was gathered to protest against the mining in Aravali hills and to protect the same.
During the investigation we found that the video is old and features a crowd gathered during the wrestling tournament in Rajasthan. The viral claim is misleading.
Claim:
Instagram user Political Voice shared the viral video on their profile.
Other users are also sharing the same video with similar claims on other social networking platforms too.
Investigation:
We started the investigation by running a reverse image search on the keyframes obtained from the video.
This led us to a video uploaded on Instagram on 31st August.
The caption said that the video was from Rajasthan’s larget wrestling tournament and the location tagged was Kariri Khanpur, Mahwa.
We then ran a keyword search from the caption.
We found a news report about the same on bhaskar.com.
The reported uploaded over four months ago said (translation): In Kariri village, a grand wrestling bout (kushti dangal) will be organised today, August 30, at the Lakkhi fair of Bhairu Baba. The dangal will begin at 1 pm and will see participation from dangal kesari wrestlers from Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan.
By running a Google keyword search we found several social media posts from the wrestling tournament.
We also found a live video by Rajasthan TV News streamed over three months ago. The location seemed very similar to the keyframes being seen in the viral video being shared claiming to be from the protest against Aravali mining.
We also found a video on JAGAT TAK NEWS uploaded three months ago.
We got similar keyframes in this video report that can also be seen in the viral reel.
Conclusion: Video of a wrestling tournament in Rajasthan from August shared with misleading claims being from a recent protest to save Aravali hills from mining. The video is unrelated and old and the claim is misleading.
