Old video from Haridwar viral as visuals of Haldwani violence and Muslims demonstrating against UCC

A video is being circulated on social media depicting a crowd of people who appear to be from the Muslim community. A police car is also seen parked. The video is being shared against the backdrop of the recent violence in Haldwani in Uttarakhand after the demolition of a mosque and madrasa in Banbhoolpoora. Six people have lost their lives and at least 60 have been injured. As many as 30 people have been arrested.

Some users shared the video claiming it showed scenes of violence in Haldwani, while others claimed that it featured Muslims protesting against the UCC Bill being passed in the Uttarakhand assembly.

ISKCON Kolkata vice-president and spokesperson Radharaman Das, who shares communal disinformation on social media regularly, shared the viral video on X (Twitter) linking it to the Haldwani incident. (Archived link)

A user named Amitabh Chaudhary, who has been caught spreading misinformation several times in the past, promoted this video in connection with the UCC bill recently passed in the Uttarakhand assembly. (Archived link)

Another user promoted the clip and wrote that the video showed Muslims who had taken to the streets to protest against the UCC Bill. (Archived link)

Several other users also amplified the video on social media with similar claims.

Fact Check

Alt News performed a reverse image search using frames taken from the viral video. We found the same video posted on X by a person named Neeraj Rai on May 8, 2022. This proves that the video is old. In this tweet, the user reveals that this video was taken after the namaz prayers at Jwalapur Eidgah in Haridwar.

ज्वालापुर ईदगाह हरिद्वार में नमाज अदा करने के बाद का नजारा. हरि की नगरी अल्हा की बन गयी, सोचने वाली बात है उत्तराखंड मे मुसलमान कहाँ से आया यंहा के पूर्वज तो हिन्दू ब्रामण हिन्दू राजपूत या हिन्दू हरिजन थे.. pic.twitter.com/Gj0OMb3CqE

— नीरज राय (@neerajroy8) May 8, 2022

Based on the information in the tweet, we searched for Jwalapur Eidgah in Haridwar on Google Map. We found the location of the viral video through the Street View search feature. In the graphic below, we have compared two frames of the viral video with Google Street View. This confirms that the video is not from Haldwani, but from Jwalapur, located more than 200 kilometres away.

In May 2022, many users had posted this video on Facebook. It is worth noting that Eid-ul-Fitr was celebrated on May 3 in 2022. We found a report from the same day on the Facebook page of Bharatvarsh 24×7 News, claiming that thousands of people offered Eid-ul-Fitr prayers at the Jwalapur Eidgah.

The Haridwar Police also issued a statement regarding the viral clip and said that this footage was actually from 2022 and was being falsely circulated in connection to both the UCC Bill and the Haldwani violence.

To sum it up, many social media users shared old videos of a crowd gathered in Jwalapur to offer namaz on the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr in 2022 in connection with the recent violence in Haldwani, Uttarakhand and the UCC bill passed in the Uttarakhand assembly.