Narendra Modi Chased by Mob During Recent US Visit? No, Video From Australia

The video is from Melbourne, Australia when anti COVID-19 lockdown protestors had hit the streets on 21 September.

Video claims that Narendra Modi was chased by a mob during his recent visit to the United States.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A one-minute long video, which shows a crowd attacking police cars leading to chaos and commotion on the street, is being shared with a claim that it shows farmers in the United States (US) hounding Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was recently in the country for the Quad Summit.

However, we found the video is from 21 September from Melbourne, Australia when anti-COVID-19 lockdown protesters had hit the streets to resist the government's mandate for compulsory vaccinations in order to continue work in the construction sector.

CLAIM

The video is being shared along with a claim, originally in Hindi, that says the American troops had to take back Modi because of the crowd. It further adds that this had happened first time in history that an Indian prime minister was met with such resistance.

An archive of the tweet can be found here. 

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter/Screenshot)

Several social media users have shared the video on Facebook and Twitter and the archived links can be seen here, here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND

We extracted several keyframes from the video using Google Chrome's InVid WeVerify extension and conducted a reverse image search on some of them.

A Yandex reverse image search result led us to a tweet by a user on 21 September which said that the visuals were from Melbourne, Australia.

Taking a cue from there, we looked for news bulletins about the incident on YouTube and found a video uploaded by ABC News (Australia) on 21 September.

The video mentioned that the protest happened in Melbourne against the government's decision to "shut down the construction sector for two weeks amid concerns over non-compliance with COVID rules".

The news report aired a part of the clip that can be seen in the viral video. The relevant part can be seen from 50 seconds to 53 seconds.

Screengrab from ABC News. 

(Source: ABC News (Australia)/ Screenshot)

Another article by The Guardian reported on the incident and carried the same viral video, which was posted by a user on social media.

The report added that the protest started with members of the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU). The union's office is at Elizabeth Street in Melbourne.

MATCHING THE VIEW ON GOOGLE MAPS

We starting looking around Elizabeth Street and the nearby areas on Google Maps. Since the video seemed to show a road with four-way traffic, we focused on that and reached Exhibition Street. Finally, we were able to match the location seen in the viral video with that seen on Google Maps.

Visuals highlighting the similarity between the viral video and imagery available on Google Maps.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Clearly, a video of protests in Melbourne is being shared with the false claim that farmers had chased Modi in the US. However, it is true that Indian Americans protested in front of the White House against Modi's visit to the US.

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