Video of fruit vendors and devotees dispute in UP’s Sambhal is shared with a false communal narrative
A video (here, here, here, and here) showing a group of people fighting on a road in front of a bus is going viral on social media, with claims that Muslims attacked Hindu pilgrims traveling in a bus in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh. In this article, we will fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video shows Muslims attacking Hindu pilgrims traveling in a bus in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh.
Fact: This viral video shows a physical altercation between fruit vendors and devotees over fruit prices near Janta Petrol Pump in Sambhal on 21 March 2025. According to the police and media reports, both parties involved in the dispute belong to the Hindu community. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
To learn more about this viral video, we conducted a Google reverse search using the keywords from the video. This search led us to multiple news reports (here, here, here, and here) featuring keyframes from the viral video. According to these reports, the video is indeed from Sambhal and depicts an incident that occurred on 21 March 2025, near Janta Petrol Pump in the Sadar Kotwali area of Sambhal. These reports state that a bus carrying devotees travelling to Maa Purnagiri Temple in Uttarakhand had stopped by the roadside as some devotees wanted to buy fruits. An argument broke out between the devotees and fruit vendors over pricing, which escalated into a physical altercation. Both sides began hitting each other with sticks.
According to a news report by ‘Jagran News’, as soon as the police received information about the incident, they arrived at the spot and took six people from both sides into custody, escorting them to the Kotwali police station. The report further stated that Sambhal Kotwali Station House Officer Anuj Tomar said that fruit vendors Neeraj, Naresh, and Niranjan, residents of Bareilly Sarai, and devotees Raju, Surjeet, and Sanjeev, residents of Mandli Samsapur in the Nakhasa police station area, were involved in the altercation. All six were booked for disturbing the peace.
Additionally, during this search, we also found that on 22 March 2025, Sambhal Police posted a clarification on X (archived here) regarding this incident. In response to a now-deleted X post containing the same video, they stated that both groups involved in the clash were Hindus. The post reads: “There was a fight between two parties while buying fruits, both parties belong to the same community (Hindu). The local police station has taken preventive action against a total of six people from both sides, and further legal action is underway.” (Translated from Hindi to English)
Furthermore, we spoke to Anuj Kumar Tomar, SHO (Station House Officer) of Sambhal Kotwali Police Station. Speaking to Factly, he confirmed that there is no communal angle to this incident and that both parties involved in the dispute belong to the Hindu community.
To sum it up, a video showing a dispute over fruit prices between fruit vendors and devotees in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, is being shared with a false communal narrative.