Fact-Check: Old Video From Lahore Revived, Linked to Agnipath Protests

The video from 2021 showed people gathering for the Chehlum of TLP chief Allama Khadim Hussain Rizvi in Lahore.

The claims state that the video shows protests over the Agnipath scheme.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A video which shows a huge gathering of people under a metro rail route raising Islamic slogans, is being shared on social media with the claim that it shows protests over Agnipath scheme, a military recruitment plan announced by the defence ministry on 14 June.

The scheme, which aims to recruit soldiers in the Army, Navy, and Air Force – largely on a short-term contractual basis – has snowballed into a major controversy, leading to violent protests in as many as 11 Indian states.

A Bharat Bandh was called on Monday, 20 June, by armed forces aspirants protesting the new scheme, and security has been beefed up.

Click here to get the live updates related to the protests.

However, we could trace back this video to January 2021 when the crowd had gathered in Pakistan's Lahore to mark the 40-day funeral meet of former Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) chief Khadim Hussain Rizvi.

Notably, the same video was circulated, merely weeks ago, linking it to the Nupur Sharma-Prophet Muhammad controversy. You can read our fact-check here.

CLAIM

The video is being shared along with the claim that it shows protests over the Agnipath scheme.

An archive of the post can be seen here. 

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

More archived links can be seen here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND

With the help of InVid, a video verification tool, we extracted several keyframes from the video, and conducted a reverse image search on some of them.

A Google reverse image search led us to a video on YouTube published on the channel of 'Labbaik News' on 4 January 2021.

The video's title read, 'Allama Khadim Hussain Rizvi Chehlum | TLP Chehlum 2021.'

Next, we looked for news reports, and using relevant keywords, we found the news published on a website called 'Baaghi TV,' published on 3 January 2021.

The article mentioned that thousands had attended the Chehlum (funeral meet 40 days after a person's death) of Allama Khadim Hussain Rizvi in Lahore.

The TLP chief had passed away at the age of 54 on 19 November 2020, Pakistan's daily Dawn had reported.

Further, we also found images of the gathering on Getty Images published in 2021. People were seen sitting under the metro rail route, as is seen in the viral video.

The image description read, "Activists of hardline religious political party Tehreek-e-Labbaik, pray for the late party founder Khadim Hussain Rizvi, during his Chehlum which is the fortieth day of mourning after Ashura, in Lahore on January 3, 2021."

The image was from Lahore, Pakistan.

(Source: Getty Images/ Altered by The Quint)

Clearly, an old video from Pakistan is being shared on social media with the false claim that it shows protests over the new Agnipath scheme.

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