Authors
Police have apprehended 30 individuals, among them Abdul Malik, believed to be the suspected mastermind behind the recent outbreak of violence in Haldwani on Thursday, over an anti-encroachment drive.
Following this, a 16-second long video is circulating on social media, showing a young girl crying and pleading not to be evicted. Posting the video, many have linked the emotional footage to the current situation of Haldwani. Among the users who posted the video, X user @iamMDHussain wrote, “The situation in Haldwani is distressing; it’s important to promote unity and respect for the rights of all individuals, including Indian Muslims, to live peacefully in India. The post had one thousand retweets and 1.9K likes till the time of publishing.
An archive version of such a post can be seen here. (https://archive.is/r9x8S)
However, Newschecker has found that the video is not recent and is one year old.
Fact Check/Verification
Newschecker ran a reverse image search of a keyframe of the video, which led us to a YouTube video, dated January 10, 2023, titled “Nearly 50,000 people in a Muslim-majority neighborhood of India are facing evictions and demolitions.” At the 9-second mark of this video, one can see the same footage that is now going viral as recent.
Subsequently, we ran a keyword search on the internet and found that on January 5, 2023, The Free Press Journal reported the same video. The report revealed that the little girl made an emotional appeal to PM Modi, requesting that she not be evicted from her home in Haldwani. The report revealed that the Uttarakhand High Court had issued a verdict last January ordering the removal of encroachments from railway land in the Banbhoolpura area of Haldwani on December 20, 2022, following a one-week advance notice given to the residents. Subsequently, a petition was filed in the Supreme Court challenging the order issued by the High Court, leading the apex court to temporarily halt the demolition process.
We found the same video also posted on the X handle of Free Press Journal, dated January 5, 2023, proving that the video is from last year and not recent.
Conclusion
Thus it is safe to conclude that the viral video is from 2023 and has been falsely shared as recent.
Result: Missing Context
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