A video of police personnel running and being followed by several people with bulls is going viral on the internet with users claiming that it shows people from Bihar chasing away police in Tamil Nadu.
An archive of the post can be seen here.
(Source: Instagram/Screenshot)
The background: This comes after several old and unrelated videos went viral to claim that Bihar migrants were allegedly attacked in Tamil Nadu. Team WebQoof has debunked several such false claims which can be read here.
What is the truth?: Neither is the clip recent nor is it from Tamil Nadu. It could be traced back to at least August 2019 and is from Maharashtra's Bhusaval.
It shows a festival called 'Bail Pola' being celebrated in a village called Varadsim.
The Quint spoke to Bhusaval Police Inspector Gajanan Padghan who told us, “Police personnel were running ahead to clear the road during a race of the bulls, where the winner gets an honour from the villagers."
How did we find out?: We took out the keyframes of the video using InVID, a Google Chrome extension, and performed a reverse image search on them.
This led us to a similar video uploaded on an unverified YouTube channel called 'Kidsmark'.
It was uploaded on 31 August 2019. The description of the video was in Marathi, which loosely translates to, "A 300-year-old tradition of Bail Pola in the village of Varadsim."
A comparison between both the images clearly highlights the similarities.
(Source: YouTube/Screenshot/Altered by The Quint)
Further, we also found other videos on YouTube where police personnel can be seen present during the race of the bulls.
Some people can be seen running with the bulls and the horns of the animals are also painted as seen in the viral clip.
People can be running with bulls during the race as seen in the viral video.
(Source: YouTube/Screenshot/Altered by The Quint)
What is 'Bail Pola' festival?: This festival is celebrated by farmers who express their gratitude towards bulls for the support they provide during farming. People of Maharashtra and other states like Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh have been celebrating this festival for years.
The bulls are decorated and different types of pictures are painted on them.
A procession is also carried where people from the village gather together to celebrate.
Conclusion: A video of a festival from Maharashtra is going viral with users falsely claiming that people from Bihar chased away police personnel in Tamil Nadu.
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