Video Showing People Pelting Stones at a Train Shared With a False Communal Spin

The video showed a fight between students of two colleges in Chennai and had nothing to do with namaz disruption.

A video, which shows people pelting stones at a train has gone viral with a claim that it shows people from the Muslim community agitated after the train's horn disturbed their namaz (prayer).

However, we found that the video was from 12 April and showed an incident of stone-pelting between two groups of students at Perambur railway station in Chennai. News reports on the incident didn't mention anything about the incident being communal and the railway police too denied the claims made in the viral posts.

CLAIM

Sharing the video, a social media user wrote, "ये वीडियो तो पता नही कहाँ का है पर बताया जा रहा है कि. ट्रेन के होरन से इनको दिक्कत हो रही थी नमाज पढ़ने में. इसलिए पत्थर फेंक रहे है।".

[Translation: Don't know where this video is from but it is being told that due to the honking of the train, they were having trouble offering namaz. So, they are throwing stones.]

Similar claims were shared by several other social media users on Facebook and Twitter, archives of some can be found here, here, and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

Using the InVID WeVerify Google Chrome extension, we extracted keyframes from the viral video and conducted a reverse image search on some of them using Google.

This led us to a news report published on Zee News Tamil that carried a screenshot from the viral video. The headline when translated from Tamil to English using Google Translate, read, "Video: College students clash near Chennai Perambur railway station".

Taking a cue from here, we conducted a keyword search that led us to another report published in ETV Bharat.

The report mentioned that the students from Pachaiyappa’s College and state college students from Presidency College were involved in the brawl on 11 April.

According to the reports, Presidency College students were travelling from Chennai Central Station to Thirupathy on the Thirupathy Express, while the students from the state college were on a train going from Chennai Central to Arokkanam.

The state college students allegedly misbehaved with some passengers, which lead to the passengers stopping the train. The students then got off the train and started pelting stones at the train carrying students from Pachaiyappa’s College after a small verbal spat.

The driver stopped the train and the students then clashed on the spot. The reports added that 15 students were questioned by the police in this matter.

None of the recent reports said that the incident was communal in nature.

We also found older news reports about the students from the two colleges fighting.

We then reached out to a Chennai-based reporter who confirmed that the incident took place near Perambur railway station and it was reported on local news channels.

We also reached out to the Perambur Railway Police Station and an officer at the station refused the claims made in the viral posts and said that "the incident was not communal in nature".

Evidently, a video showing a fight between groups of students was shared with a false communal claim.

(With inputs from SM Hoax Slayer.)

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