Ramzan fasting in 2025 began on 2 March and in this context, a video (here, here and here) is going viral on social media showing police serving food to Muslim students at a gathering. The claim viral with this video states that this Iftar party was organised by the police during the Samajwadi Party’s rule when Akhilesh Yadav was the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. Let’s verify the truth behind this claim.
Claim: The viral video shows police serving food to Muslim students at an Iftar gathering organised by the police in Uttar Pradesh during the Samajwadi Party’s rule under Akhilesh Yadav.
Fact: The video is from Solapur, Maharashtra, not Uttar Pradesh. It shows an Iftar gathering hosted by Solapur Police Commissioner Harish Baijal for Urdu school students on 27 April 2022. While the Samajwadi Party has hosted Iftar parties when it was in power, this video has nothing to do with Uttar Pradesh. Hence, the claim is MISLEADING.
To verify the claim, we performed a reverse image search on Google, which led us to an X account named “Siraj Noorani.” The account had posted the same video on 30 April 2022, with the caption: “Solapur police commissioner hosts Iftar party for Urdu medium students, sets a good example for society.” Solapur is in Maharashtra, not Uttar Pradesh.
We also found the same video uploaded on YouTube on 30 April 2022, with the caption: “A child seen thanking the Commissioner of Solapur Police following Iftar.” This further confirms that the event took place in Maharashtra, not in Uttar Pradesh.
Further research led us to several news reports (here, here and here) confirming that on 27 April 2022, in Solapur, Maharashtra, Police Commissioner Harish Baijal organised an Iftar party for over 100 students and teachers from the Urdu Primary School. The initiative, inspired by his interaction with students during their visit to his bird sanctuary, was praised for fostering communal harmony, with students sharing positive experiences about the event.
We found that the Samajwadi Party ruled Uttar Pradesh four times, with the most recent term from 2012 to 2017 with Akhilesh Yadav as CM. During this period, he hosted iftar parties multiple times in UP and Bihar (here, here and here). However, the viral video has no connection to these events.
To sum up, a 2022 video of police organising an Iftar in Maharashtra was shared as an incident from Uttar Pradesh during Akhilesh Yadav’s term as CM.
