A video showing a line of parked luxury cars is viral on social media. Towards the end of the video, it is seen that these cars are burning in a fire. The caption with which the video is being shared claims that the cars belonged to the son of former Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksha. It adds that the cars were set ablaze by citizens outraging against the current economic crisis in Sri Lanka.
Srilanka Rajpaksha son’s had the collection of Rolls Royce, Lamborghini and other luxury cars, later public frustrated with Rajapaksa’s Polarization strategy and.. see what happened yesterday!!
Never divide own country citizens!
☘️@RahulGandhi @bhupeshbaghel @JsharmaINC @IYC pic.twitter.com/EWLyRycBBY
— AK_CHANDRAKAR_IYC (@A_K_Chandra_IYC) May 12, 2022
The video has multiple shares on Twitter. One of the tweets received more than 32,000 retweets.
Sri Lanka PM Rajapaksa’s sons had Rolls Royce, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Mclaren etc. See what happened to them yesterday.. pic.twitter.com/aPZr10XNCN
— JSP🏴🇲🇾🏴 (@JsPalani) May 11, 2022
The video has several reshares on Facebook as well.
We also received requests on our official Whatsapp number (+91 76000 11160) to verify if the claim was true.
Fact-check
On performing a keyword search, we found out that the video of the cars burning is from the Avenra Garden Hotel located in Negombo, Sri Lanka. A recent report by Newswire confirms the same.
Newswire also tweeted the video with the same information.
Several vehicles including a Lamborghini destroyed in Avenra Garden hotel attack in Negombo pic.twitter.com/NdRZZrBlMv
— NewsWire 🇱🇰 (@NewsWireLK) May 9, 2022
Furthermore, we found a YouTube video that shows the same luxury cars at the Avenra Garden Hotel. The parking area and colours of the models also match. The parked cars in the YouTube video are the same as the cars that are seen parked in the first few seconds of the viral video.
According to sundaytimes.lk, the cars were torched during the anti-government protests in Sri Lanka. Newswire.lk reported that four other properties belonging to the hotel chain were attacked in Negombo. The hotel issued a statement that it has no links to politicians and has remained an “independent” business.
Therefore, while the video is from Sri Lanka, it was not taken at the residence of ex-PM Mahinda Rajapaksa’s son.
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