Old Video of a Long Queue of Women Outside Bank Resurfaces With False Claim

The video from Muzaffarnagar is from 2020 and shows women queuing up outside ATM.

Fact-check: An old video is going viral to falsely claim that Muslim women are waiting outside bank after election results for the promised money by Rahul Gandhi.

(Photo: The Quint)

A video showing burqa-clad women lining up in physically-distanced circles along the road is going viral on social media.

The claim states that women were waiting to avail their promised sum of Rs 8,500 under the Congress' Mahalaxmi scheme by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

The archived version of this post can be found here.

(Photo: X/Screenshot)

(Archives of similar claims can be found here and here.)

What's the truth?: This video is from Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh and dates back to 2020.

• According to old news reports, people had lined outside the Bank of Baroda to withdraw money after getting false information that the 500 rupees deposited into their Jan Dhan accounts would be taken back by the government.

How did we find out the truth?: We observed the video closely to help us identify the location. We found one signboard and one hoarding in the video, which clearly read ‘Muzaffarnagar’ in English and Hindi.

The political party hoarding reads 'Muzaffarnagar' in Hindi.

The school's signage reads 'Muzaffarnagar".

• At the beginning of the clip, two shops – one Dr Lal’s Pathlabs and one Bank of Baroda branch – and a school named Guru Gobind Singh Public School are visible.

• We used the name of the school along with ‘Muzaffarnagar’ as keywords to verify the location further, and found the school down the road from a Bank of Baroda branch in Gandhi colony, Muzaffarnagar on Google Maps.

• Next, we performed a reverse image search on some of the keyframes of the viral video on Google.

• We found the same video uploaded to YouTube on 18 April 2020, by channel “Twitter Babu” and the titled read this video is from Muzaffarnagar.

• Taking a cue, we performed a keyword search using 'Muzaffarnagar women lining outside bank 2020' on Google and this led us to video report by News18.

• This was published on 20 April 2020 and it carried the same clip. As per the report, people had lined outside the Bank of Baroda branch to withdraw money “after getting false information that the 500 rupees deposited into their Jan Dhan accounts could be taken back”.

• It goes on to say that bank employees made everyone socially distance and explained that no such thing would happen and that their money would be safe.

• We found more news reports from The New Indian Express and Amar Ujala about the incident. The government had announced direct deposits of Rs 500 for three months, into women’s Jan Dhan accounts at the onset of the pandemic in April 2020. Some rumours led these account holders to believe that this money would be taken back by the government, causing them to rush to withdraw the amount.

• The Department of Financial Services had also tweeted regarding the rumours, assuring citizens that the amount could be withdrawn by the account holders as per their convenience.

This same video was viral with a different false claim in 2021 and we debunked it here.

What is this scheme?: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi passed a statement related to this scheme in his speech while campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections in Raebareli, Uttar Pradesh.

• He said that if he is elected to power, he would introduce schemes for youth employment and financial assistance for women.

• He added that along with jobs, beneficiaries would receive 1 lakh rupees annually and Rs 8,500 per month. Here he used the term "Khata-khat, khata-khat, khata-khat", which means quickly in Hindi and this phrase has been used in the viral claim.

• Along these lines, a scheme for women, the Mahalaxmi scheme, was also promoted by Sonia Gandhi with these benefits specifically for women.

However, some similar instances have been reported in some parts of the country namely, Lucknow and Karnataka.

Conclusion: An old video is going viral to falsely claim that Muslim women are waiting outside bank after election results for the promised money by Rahul Gandhi.

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