Fact-Check: This Clip Doesn’t Show Recent Demolition in Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich

The video dates back to September 2024 and shows a court-ordered demolition drive.

The video is old and has no connection to the recent communal violence in Bahraich.

(Source: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)

A video showing an aerial view of demolished settlements has gone viral on social media, where users have claimed that it shows recent visuals from Bahraich in Uttar Pradesh (UP).

The claim: Those sharing the video have claimed that it shows 'bulldozer justice' in action, as the Yogi Adityanath-led government in the state was exacting revenge for the killing of Ram Gopal Mishra during a communal violence in the town.

• The video was also shared by Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader and politician Sadhvi Prachi.

An archive of this post can be seen here.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

(Archives of more claims on social media can be seen here, here, and here.)

But...?: The video has no connection to the ongoing tensions in Bahraich.

• It dates back to September 2024 and shows a court-ordered demolition drive in a village called Wazirganj in Bahraich, UP.

How did we find out the truth?: We divided the viral video into multiple keyframes on InVID, a video verification extension on Google Chrome, and ran reverse image searches on some of them.

• One such search led us to a YouTube video shared on 26 September 2024, which mentioned that it showed visuals of Wazirganj in Bahraich.

The video was shared in September 2024.

(Source: YouTube/Altered by The Quint)

• Taking a cue from this, we ran a keyword search using the term 'wazirganj demolition bahraich', while the date filter on Google to look for results from September.

• A report by The Print, published on 25 September this year, mentioned that 23 structures were demolished in Bahraich's Kaiserganj

• It carried a statement by Kaiserganj Sub Divisional Magistrate Alok Prasad, who told them that the action was taken on orders by the Allahabad High Court.

• Prasad mentioned that a "government barn and road" was "reportedly occupied" by people, who had reportedly built several shops, houses, and tin sheds.

• The official X account of the Bahraich Police also dismissed the claim, clarifying that the video was one of the court-ordered demolition in September, "and not of the incident that happened in Maharajganj a few days ago."

Conclusion: An old video is being shared with the false claim that it shows a recent video of the demolition drive in Bahraich.

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