Old Video of US Khalistan March Falsely Linked to Farmer Protest

The viral video could be traced back to 2018 and is from San Francisco, USA.

A video that could be traced back to 2018 and is from San Francisco was revived to discredit the protests against farm laws.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

A viral video claims to show a “connection” between the ongoing farmers’ protest and Khalistan movement. However, the video could be traced back to 2018 and is from San Francisco, USA.

CLAIM

In the video, people can be heard raising slogans such as “gali gali mein shor hai bharat mata chor hai.”

The claim along with the video reads: “इस वीडियो को देखकर आपको समझ आ जायेगा कि किसान आंदोलन और खालिस्तान मूवमेंट में क्या कनेक्शन है और ये आंदोलन कहाँ से संचालित हो रहा है”

(Translated: After watching this video, you will understand what is the connection between the farmers’ protests and Khalistan movement and from where is this protest being operated)

You can view the archived version here.(Source: Facebook/ Screenshot)

The video shared by Facebook page ‘ModiNama’ had garnered over a lakh views and had been shared by over 5,000 users at the time of publishing the article.

Several social media users have shared the video on Twitter and Facebook with the same narrative.

You can view the archived version here.(Source: Twitter/ Screenshot)

You can view the archived version here.(Source: Facebook/ Screenshot)

WHAT WE FOUND

We noticed that the T-shirts of the people seen in the video mentioned ‘March for freedom of Khalistan.’

(Photo: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)

We then searched on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter using keywords “March for freedom of Khalistan bharat mata chor hai.” On Facebook, we found that the viral video was uploaded by a page called ‘Rohit Sardana Fans Club’ in July 2018.

(Photo: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)

We then searched on Facebook using keywords “khalistan march freedom sikhs 2018” and came across a live footage uploaded in 2016 and mentioned that it is from San Francisco, USA. While the visuals of the viral video and the Facebook video are different, but the latter helped us in ascertaining the location.

At the 02:45-mark in the 2016 video, we found a similar physical structure in blue.

Left: Viral video. Right: Live footage of San Francisco uploaded in 2016.(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

We noticed that the blue boards outside the building mentioned ‘Check Cashing Payroll Advance Western Union.’

Using this as the clue, we searched for the exact location in San Francisco on Google Earth. We found that the said structure is located at Jones Street in San Francisco.

On carefully analysing the camera movement of the viral video, we could establish that the blue building is located diagonally opposite to the black building. This, too, was confirmed using Google Earth.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

We found that the black building seen in the viral video is ‘Proper Hotel’ located at McAllister Street in San Francisco. Several similarities between the street view of the said hotel and the one seen in the viral video corroborated the same.

Left: Viral video. Right: Google street view of McAllister Street.(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

Evidently, a video that could be traced back to 2018 and is from San Francisco was revived to discredit the protests against farm laws.

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