Lighthouse Journalism found a video being widely shared on several social media platforms. The video featured temple priests, and a fight. It was claimed along with the video that the priests were fighting over share from the temple’s donation box.
During the investigation we found the viral claim to be misleading. The video shows a fight that happened in Vindhyachal temple of Mirzapur over VIP darshan.
Claim:
X user Satyadarshan shared the video and the viral claim on his profile.
Other users too are sharing the same video with similar claim on X.
Investigation:
We started the investigation b y running a reverse image search on the keyframes obtained from the video.
This led us to a post on the Instagram handle of JMD NEWS posted on July 8.
The caption said: Mirzapur News: Priest assaulted at Vindhyachal temple in Mirzapur, video goes viral on social media
We also found the same video on the Facebook handle of Bharat Samachar TV and Instagram handle of Uttar Pradesh Kesari.
We also found a news report about the incident on bhaskar.com.
The article said: In Mirzapur, priests attacked the head priest in the sanctum sanctorum of the Maa Vindhyachal temple. Six or seven people manhandled the head priest while the goddess was being adorned. His son was slapped several times. A police officer intervened. Based on the priest’s complaint, the police have registered a case against three named and one unidentified accused. The main accused, Amit Pandey, faces 25 charges, including assaulting an SI.
The report was published six months ago.
Conclusion: Viral video from Vindhyachal temple in Mirzapur, where people were allegedly being allowed entry into temple after taking money in the name of VIP darshan, is from July and has resurfaced with misleading claim. The viral claim is misleading, priests didn’t fight over share in money from donation box.
