The Waqf Amendment Bill was recently passed by both houses of India’s Parliament. The Lok Sabha approved the bill on 02 April 2025 after a nearly 12-hour debate, with 288 members voting in favour and 232 against. The Rajya Sabha subsequently passed the bill in the early hours of 04 April 2025 following a 12-hour discussion, with 128 votes in favour and 95 against. Amid this, a video is going viral on social media (here, here, and here) claiming to show a massive gathering of Muslims at Marine Drive, Mumbai, as a show of strength. Let’s verify the truth behind the video in this article.
Claim: The video shows a large gathering at of Muslims at Marine Drive, Mumbai, as a show of strength against the Waqf Amendment Bill.
Fact: The viral video does not show a large gathering at Marine Drive, Mumbai, as a show of strength against the Waqf Amendment Bill. It is a compilation of two different videos. The first part shows a crowd gathered at Marine Drive, Mumbai, on 4 July 2024, to welcome the Indian cricket team during their victory parade. The second part features thousands of Catholics in East Timor attending a Mass with Pope Francis during his three-day visit to Timor-Leste on 10 September 2024. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
A reverse image search of keyframes from the viral video led us to a similar video from a different angle on The Print’s YouTube channel, published on 04 July 2024. The description stated that the footage shows a crowd gathered at Marine Drive, Mumbai, to welcome the Indian cricket team during their victory parade. This confirms that the viral video is a compilation of two different videos.
Factly previously debunked the same video when it went viral with a false claim that it showed a Muslim rally in Mumbai organised by AIMIM. We verified the visuals of the viral video and also geolocated the location, which can be seen here.
To verify the second part of the viral video, we did a reverse image search of keyframes from the viral video, which led us to a social media post dated 12 September 2024 that matched the viral video. The post was captioned, “More than 600,000 people attended the Holy Mass at Taci Tolu, Timor-Leste on 10 September 2024. The group of people following us greets the Holy Father.”
A Google keyword search led us to a Reuters report, which revealed that the video shows thousands of Catholics in East Timor attending a Mass with Pope Francis during his three-day visit to Timor-Leste on 10 September 2024.
When we compared the posters in the viral video with those in the Reuters video, we found that both visuals featured the same posters.
Additionally, we located the exact spot where the viral video was filmed using Google Maps Street View. The location is in East Timor, near Dili, the capital city.
To sum up, old and unrelated videos are falsely shared as a show of strength against the Waqf Amendment Bill at Marine Drive, Mumbai.
