Lighthouse Journalism found a video being widely shared on social media platforms. In the video, police were seen using tear gas to disperse a crowd of gathered protestors, at a Nepal-like situation unfolding in parts of the country.
During the investigation, we found that the video is from a mock drill in Bokaro and is being shared with false claims.
Claim:
Facebook user Anil Hindu shared the video on his profile.
Other users are also sharing similar videos.
Investigation:
We started the investigation by running a reverse image search on the keyframes obtained from the video and ran a reverse image search on the keyframes.
This led us to a 2 min 50 sec long video uploaded by a vlogger on YouTube.
The video uploaded on Lif&time108 over 10 days ago was titled: Bokaro Retidih Jharkhand mockdeill vlog
This clarified that the video was from a mock drill.
We then ran a keyword search on X (formerly Twitter) and searched with the keywords ‘Bokaro mock drill’.
This led us to a post by Bokaro Police.
Posted on 27th Sept, the text said: With regard to the upcoming Dussehra festival in 2025, a mock drill was conducted in the presence of the Superintendent of Police, Bokaro, at the parade ground of Police Line, Sector 12, Bokaro, and in Ritadih under Marafari police station, Bokaro, with the participation of Deputy Superintendent of Police (City), Sergeant Majors 1 and 2, constables, and other police officers and personnel.
We found a few reports about the mock drill.
We found a video report upon running a keyword search on the YouTube channel ‘Bokaro Ki Awaaj News’ uploaded ten days ago.
The visuals from the viral video were also seen in this report.
Conclusion: A video from a mock drill by Bokaro police before Dussehra is being shared as recent of a recent Nepal-like protest in India. The viral claim is false.
