A 38-second-long clip is going viral on social media showing a large crowd of protesters taking part in a torch rally. They can be heard chanting, “UP police keep going forward, we are with you; Yogi ji keep going forward, we are with you; UP police go ahead and use your batons, we are with you.” While sharing the video, users claim that it is part of a ‘I love Mahadev’ protest and the GenZ of Uttar Pradesh are marching to express solidarity with police.

‘I love Mahadev’ protests started as a counter to the ‘I love Muhammad’ demonstrations in several parts of Uttar Pradesh. These demonstrations started after the displaying of ‘I love Muhammad’ signboard during Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi celebrations (Islam’s Prophet Muhammad’s birthday) in Kanpur’s Rawatpur area stirred communal tension on September 4. Allegations, counter allegations, FIRs, detentions and arrests followed. There were also reports of violence in Bareilly on September 26 in a related incident.

X user Megh Updates (@MeghUpdates), who has been found amplifying communal misinformation several times in the past, posted the clip in question on September 30 with the following caption: “I ❤️ Mahadev: GenZ hits the streets with chants — ‘UP Police tum lath bajao, hum tumhare saath hain.’ ‘Yogi Ji aage badho, hum tumhare saath hain.”

At the time of this report being written, the post has received over 322,800 views and has been reposted over 6,000 times. (Archive)

📍I ❤️ Mahadev: GenZ hits the streets with chants —

Several other users, such as @Hinduism_sci, @nidhisj2001, @AmitLeliSlayer, shared the viral clip claiming that it showed a ‘I love Mahadev’ protest rally where the youth of UP showed solidarity with police.

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Fact Check

To verify the authenticity of this video, we first broke it down into multiple keyframes and then ran a reverse image search on some of them. This led us to an Instagram post shared on September 25, which carried the same clip without the audio which could be heard in the above-attached social media posts.

Further, we noticed that another user, @nareshmeenaofficial, was tagged in the caption of the above post. Upon checking the profile, we found that Naresh Meena was a politician and former general secretary of the Rajasthan University student union. In his timeline, we found another video of the same rally shot from a different angle.

The caption of this post stated: “Under the leadership of son Aniruddha to pay tribute to the children who died in Jhalawad-Piplodi accident. ‘Huge Torch Procession’ 📍Jaipur”. In the video, one can hear people chanting, “Nyay do, nyay do” (give us justice) and not “UP police hum tumhaare saath hain” (UP police we are with you).

Taking a cue from here, we ran a relevant keyword search and found that this protest was related to an accident which happened in Rajasthan’s Jhalawar district in Piplodi village, on July 25, where the roof of a government school fell, killing seven students and critically injuring 28 others.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Naresh Meena (@nareshmeenaofficial)

We also geolocated the area from the keyframes of the viral clip and confirmed that the video was indeed from Gopalpura Road in Jaipur, Rajasthan.

Additionally, we found several news reports and video reports by media outlets which covered the torch rally in Jaipur. None of them mentioned any connection to the ‘I love Mahadev’ protests.

We also came across an X post by the UP police made on October 1 regarding the viral clip. The UP police stated in their post: “This video is of the torch procession in Rajasthan (Jaipur) on September 25, 2025, which is being posted on social media with a fake voiceover added to it.”

Hence, it is clear that the viral clip claiming to show an ‘I love Mahadev’ protest rally in Uttar Pradesh is actually from Jaipur, Rajasthan, and has no relation to the poster controversy.

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