2019 Clip From UP's Gorakhpur Shared as 'Indian Army Attacking Kashmiris'

The video shows a clash between the police and anti-CAA protesters in Uttar Pradesh's Gorakhpur.

The video shows violence between police and anti-CAA protestors in Uttar Pradesh.

(Photo: Facebook/Altered by The Quint) 

A set of videos showing the police lathi-charging people running away from the spot is being shared on social media with a claim in Arabic that goes on to say that 'the Indian government is preparing a massive military campaign against Muslims in Kashmir.'

This video is followed by another video which shows an elderly man emotionally speaking about the violence in Kashmir.

However, our team found that the video dates back to 2019, when the police in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh clashed with people protesting the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

CLAIM

The video is being shared with a claim in Arabic, which translates to, "India has issued a warning to all religions 'except Islam' to immediately get out of Kashmir in preparation for a massive military campaign, as usual, against 'terrorism' or, more precisely, against 'Islam'. The internet and communications were cut off in preparation for a major massacre."

The claim is accompanied by hashtags that call for help to 'save Kashmir' and 'save Muslims'.

An archived version of this post can be seen here.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

More claims can be seen here, here, and here.

WHAT WE FOUND

Using InVID, a video verification tool, we divided the video into multiple frames. We then ran a reverse image search on each of these frames using Yandex which led us to a video uploaded on YouTube in December 2019.

The video's titled noted that it showed anti-CAA protesters.

(Photo: YouTube/Altered by by The Quint)

This video noted that the visuals showed the police beating up anti-CAA protesters. Additionally, a shop board with the name 'Maa Vaishno Stationers' was visible in this video.

We looked up the shop name and found one that was located in Nakhas Chowk, Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh. We found a photo of the same shop on Google Maps and a comparison can be seen below.

Both photo show coloured blocks under the shop's name.

(Photo: Facebook/Google Maps/Altered by The Quint)

Taking clues from the video and the shop's location, we used relevant keywords to look up reports on the incident. This led us to a video uploaded on another YouTube channel called 'Dynamite News', which carried clips similar to the one seen in the claim.

Here, we saw a shop resembling one visible at a distance in the viral video, whose board read 'Mangla Wedding Collections'. We looked its name up and found one with a Gorakhpur address.

Next, we looked up the proximity of the two stores and found that both of them were in the same lane, establishing the location shown in the video.

The shops are a little over 20 metres apart.

(Photo: Google Maps/Screenshot)

The video shows one of many protests that took place in 2019 against the Citizenship Amendment Act. While many nationwide demonstrations went peacefully, Uttar Pradesh saw a handful of its protests turn violent and resulted in clashes between people and the police.

The second clip, which shows an elderly man speaking emotionally about Kashmir, is also an old video that has been on the internet since 2019.

However, we have not been able to independently verify the identity of the man speaking the video or the location. But clearly the first video is from Gorakhpur and this one has been on the internet since 2019.

Evidently, a set of old videos were shared on social media, which wrongly insinuates that the Indian army is planning brutality against Muslims in Kashmir.

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