A 28-second long video clip where people can be seen pelting stones at a train is viral on social media with a Hindi caption. As per the caption, Muslims pelted stones at the train because the sound of the train’s horn “disturbed” their namaz.

The video was shared by several Twitter users with the same caption.

The video is also viral on Facebook.

Fact-check

We broke down the video into keyframes and performed a Google reverse image search on one of the stills. This led us to various news reports about two factions of youth in Chennai who got into a fight and later pelted stones at a local train. The incident took place on April 11.

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Below we have compared the thumbnail of a news report with a still from the viral video.

As per the report by India Today, the incident was sparked by a rivalry between students from Pachaiyappa’s College and Presidency College. It took place when “Presidency College students were travelling on the Thirupathy Express and Pachaiyappa’s College students were travelling on the train which was on its way to Arakkonam. Students from Presidency College allegedly behaved in an unruly manner and forced passengers to complain and get the train stopped. Then they got down and began to pelt stones at the train travelling towards Arokkanam, targeting Pachaiyappa’s College students, which led the train driver to stop the train. Then, a fight broke out between both groups.”

As per a report by FGN, four of these youths were arrested from a nearby cinema hall where they were waiting to buy tickets for the film “Beast”.

Hence, a clash between college students in Chennai was falsely shared with the claim that Muslims had pelted stones at a train because it disturbed their prayers.

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About the Author

Kalim is a journalist with a keen interest in tech, misinformation, culture, etc