Old, Unrelated Video Shared as Protest Rally Held in Tripura Amid Violence

We could trace the video back to May 2021, five months before the communal violence started in Tripura.

A video showing a massive crowd protesting on the streets has been shared by several social media users as a protest taking place in Tripura's Kadamtala area following the violence that broke out in the state.

However, we found that the video has been on the internet since May this year, months before the communal violence began in the state.

While we were unable to independently verify the context of the video, we found several social media posts and a news report that suggested that the video could be from a funeral procession in Badaun, Uttar Pradesh.

CLAIM

Social media users who shared the 12-second video wrote in their caption, "Today there is a huge protest rally from Kadamtala in Dharmanagar North Tripura district."

Many others used the same caption to share the viral video on Facebook and Twitter, archives of which can be found here, here, here, and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We conducted a keyword search for "Tripura protests" on Twitter and Facebook and found a longer 30-second version of the video.

In the video, we could hear "Peer Salim Zindabad" slogans being raised by the crowd.

We fragmented the video into multiple keyframes using InVID WeVerify tool and conducted a reverse image search of some of the keyframes along with keywords "पीर सालिम" (Peer Salim).

While going through the search results, we found a YouTube video published on 9 May 2021 which was titled, "हुजूर पीर सालिम उल कादरी साहब का आखिरी सफर". [Translation: The last journey of Huzur Peer Salim Ul Qadri Sahab.]

Taking a cue from the title, we conducted a keyword search and found a report published in Aaj Tak, which had a screenshot from the viral video.

The report talked about a funeral procession held in Uttar Pradesh's Badaun for Hazrat Abdul Hameed Mohammad Salimul Qadri, who died on 9 May. According to news reports published in other news organisations, including, Quint Hindi, a huge crowd turned up for the funeral procession of the Muslim leader.

We also found the same video posted by social media users in May talking about the funeral procession.

However, we have been unable to independently verify the location of this video. But since the viral video was found online five months before the communal violence began in Tripura in Octotber, it is evident that it can't be that of a protest in Tripura right now.

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