Old, Unrelated Video Shared as One of Cow Slaughtering Machine in Uttar Pradesh

The video is old and is not from Uttar Pradesh, which has banned cow slaughter in the state.

(Content Warning: Disturbing visuals. Viewer discretion is advised.)

A graphic video showing footage of a cow slaughtering machine at work, which slaughters and moves the animal's body is being shared on social media.

What are users saying?: The video is being shared as one from Uttar Pradesh, with text which pleads the government to stop importing machines which kill cows.

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

But...?: The video is neither recent, nor from Uttar Pradesh. It has been on the internet since at least 2015.

How did we find out?: We took screenshots of the viral video and ran reverse images on them.

One such search led us to the same video, which was uploaded to an Egyptian media organisation ETC TV's verified YouTube channel in 2016.

• The video's title mentioned that it showed the slaughtering process of "blue beef," which refers to a meat obtained from a special variety of Belgian cattle.

• We also came across older versions of the video, which were shared on video hosting website Dailymotion and Facebook in 2014 and 2015 respectively.

• Both videos were shared with the caption, "Don't buy pack meat from Unreliable markets. Many times it is HARAM (sic)."

• In the comments under these videos, several users commented that the video was possibly from the USA. However, we did not find any credible reports to corroborate this claim.

Cattle slaughter in Uttar Pradesh: Since it came to power, the Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh governments has been working against cow slaughter in the state.

• In 2017, it started shutting down "illegal" abattoirs, beginning to shut down all slaughterhouses and put a "complete ban on cow smuggling in the state."

• Three years later, the UP government passed the Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Cow Slaughter Prevention (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020, which introduced harsher punishments for those found guilty of slaughtering or transporting bovines for slaughter.

• A single judge bench of the Allahabad High Court had then observed that the Act was being misused against people found with meat, as the meat was immediately labelled as cow meat without sending it for testing at Forensic Science Laboratories (FSLs).

Conclusion: An old, unrelated video is being shared to claim that it shows visuals of cow slaughtering machines that were imported by the Uttar Pradesh government.

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