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A video of a massive crowd is being shared on social media, where users are linking it to the recent stampede at a godman's event in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, which claimed over 150 lives.
The video: The video shows a large crowd gathered in an open area, with people running behind vehicles in a narrow lane.
The clip was shared by DW News and was also a part of News18 India's coverage of the tragedy.
How did we find out the truth?: Using InVID, a video verification tool, we divided the video into multiple keyframes and conducted a reverse image search on them.
One of the results on Google led us to a YouTube channel called 'Traveller Sachin', which had shared a longer version of the video from a different angle.
The video, titled 'Mangal Divas Rupwas Bharatpur Rajasthan | Narayan Sakar Hari Ke Bhajan | Sataya Ka Sath Rajasthan' was uploaded on 9 February, 2024.
This is months before the Satsang in Hathras, which was held on 2 July.
We noticed that the part of this video which was used in the viral claim began at the 6:59-minutes mark, and noticed similarities in both videos.
The YouTube channel had also shared a short video from the event in Bharatpur, which gave us some clues towards the location of the event.
Using Google Maps, we were able to verify that the viral video was taken off National Highway 123, near the Rupwas bus stop.
Conclusion: An old video of a large crowd is being falsely linked to the recent stampede in Hathras.
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