Violence erupted in Haldwani, Uttarakhand, after authorities began the demolition of a mosque and madrasa in the Banbhoolpura area on 8 February 2024 in an anti-encroachment drive. Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Dhami issued shoot-on-sight orders following reports of vandalism, stone pelting, and a police station being surrounded by a mob. Amid this, a video of a young girl crying and pleading not to be evicted from her home is widely circulated on social media platforms with the claim that the video is recent and from Haldwani after the recent violence. Through this article, let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video depicting a young girl crying and pleading not to be evicted from her home in Haldwani after the recent violence in February 2024.
Fact: This viral video is from Haldwani and dates back to January 2023. According to reports, after the Uttarakhand High Court issued orders for the eviction of over 4,500 homes in Haldwani in December 2022, this young girl was crying and pleading not to be evicted from her home while talking to the media. This video is not related to the recent Haldwani violence. Hence the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
To check the veracity of the viral video, we conducted a relevant keyword search on the internet, which led us to a X(Twitter) post Published by The Free Press Journal on 05 January 2023. The video was an exact match of the viral video and was shared with the caption ‘Little girl makes an emotional appeal to PM Narendra Modi not to demolish their houses in Haldwani’.
Subsequently, we also found an X(Twitter) post by Brut India which carried the same video. Brut had credited the footage to journalist Ghazala Ahmad.
We found the same video on the journalist Ghazala Ahmad’s X page with a longer version that carried statements from other residents of Haldwani. The video was shared on January 4, 2023. More reports featuring the same video can be seen here & here.
To know more information about this incident, we conducted a relevant keyword search on the internet and found several reports regarding the same (here & here). According to these reports, in December 2022, the Uttarakhand High Court issued orders for the eviction of over 4,500 homes in Haldwani. Authorities were instructed to conduct anti-encroachment drives to remove houses allegedly constructed on land owned by the Railways. However, these eviction efforts were temporarily halted due to protests in the area and a stay order issued by the Supreme Court on 5 January 2023. The Supreme Court’s order emphasized, “There cannot be an uprooting of 50,000 people overnight. There needs to be a segregation of people who have no right to the land and a necessity for rehabilitation, recognizing the railways’ needs.”
To sum it up, an old video of a girl crying in Haldwani in 2023 is being shared as a recent one.
