Gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari died of a cardiac arrest on 28 March 2024, in Uttar Pradesh. His final rites were held in Ghazipur on 30 March 2024, amidst tight security. Following this, several posts (here, here, here, and here) accompanied by a video of a massive crowd gathering in a funeral procession are being widely shared across social media platforms with the claim that the video depicts the massive crowd gathering in Mukhtar Ansari’s funeral procession. Through this article, let’s fact-check the claim made in these posts.
Claim: Video shows a massive crowd at the funeral procession of Mukhtar Ansari.
Fact: The viral video depicts the funeral procession of Sufi scholar and Sunni Muslim leader Murshid Shah Saqlain Miyan that took place in Bareilly in October 2023. However, according to reports, a large number of people gathered outside Ansari’s house and at the burial ground in Ghazipur during Mukhtar Ansari’s funeral procession, where he was laid to rest on 30 March 2023. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
To learn more about the viral video, we conducted a Google reverse image search using the key frames from it. This search led us to a video which carried similar visuals, and was published on YouTube on 28 March 2024, prior to Mukhtar Ansari’s funeral. It is evident from this that the viral video does not depict visuals from Mukhtar Ansari’s funeral. Additionally, this YouTube video bears a watermark of an Instagram account of ‘@isaqlaini690’.
Taking a cue from this, we skimmed through the Instagram profile of user ‘@isaqlaini690” and discovered that the same viral video was posted (Archive link) on this account on 19 January 2024, with the caption, ‘Hazrat Peero Murshid Shah Saqlain Miyan Huzoor R.A #Janaza_Shareef #22october2023.’ We also found that a snippet from the viral video was shared on this Instagram account on 03 November 2023, with the caption, ‘Murshidi Miya Huzoor ka Aakhri Safar’.
Taking a cue from these Instagram video captions, we conducted a relevant keyword search on the internet which led us to a report by ‘Hindustan‘ published on 20 October 2023. According to this report, “Peero Murshid Shah Saqlain Mian, a prominent religious leader among Sunni Muslims, passed away on 20 October 2023 evening. ‘Amar Ujala‘ also reported about the death of the religious leader in Bareilly. The ‘Amar Ujala’ report mentioned that thousands of devotees from Kakrala and Badaun, among other cities, gathered to pay their last respects to Hazrat Saqlain Miyan in October 2023. The procession took place on the grounds of Islamia Inter College. Subsequently, we also discovered a live stream of the funeral procession of Shah Saqlain Miyan on the “i Saqlaini” YouTube channel, which was streamed on 22 October 2023.
Taking cues from the news report, we searched for ‘Islamia Inter College’ on Google Maps and located a similar structure seen in the viral video. Upon comparison, it is clear that the video shows the funeral procession of Sufi scholar and Sunni Muslim leader Murshid Shah Saqlain Miyan that took place in October 2023 in Bareilly.
However, according to news reports (here and here), it is true that a large number of people gathered outside Ansari’s house and at the burial ground in Ghazipur during Mukhtar Ansari’s funeral procession, where he was laid to rest on 30 March 2023.
To sum up, an old and unrelated video is being falsely shared as a video of Mukhtar Ansari’s funeral procession.
