Old video of anti-CAB protests in Assam is passed off as a rally of Krishna Devotees in Mathura
A social media post accompanying a video of thousands of people rallying on the streets is being shared widely with a claim which reads ‘Krishna devotees broke barricading in Mathura’. Through this article, let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of Lord Krishna devotees protesting in Mathura.
Fact: The video actually shows visuals of anti-CAB protests which were held in Assam’s Nagaon district back in December 2019. Few independent media agencies and journalists have reported the video back then as anti-CAB protests in Nagaon. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
We found that neither the video is of a recent incident nor the video is related to Mathura. Reverse image search of the video led us to a 2019 YouTube upload, which carried the exact same visuals. The video was uploaded on 12 December 2019. As per the description of the video, the visuals show anti-Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) protests in Assam’s Nagaon.
Taking a cue from the YouTube video, further search with relevant keywords yielded a Facebook post that shared the same visuals on 12 December 2019. This post is shared by Inside Northeast, an independent regional media page, the description accompanying the video shared on this page reads ‘In Nagaon, mass display of resentment against the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) was witnessed. This is one of the countless protest rallies taken out in the name of the Bill that was passed in the Rajya Sabha yesterday.’
Further reverse image search yielded a couple of tweets (here & here) by journalists dating back to December 2019 who reported similar visuals as anti-CAB protests in Nagaon, Assam. Multiple mainstream news agencies (here, here, here & here) have also reported on 12 December 2019 that anti-CAB protests have erupted in Jorhat, Golaghat, Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, Sivasagar, Bongaigaon, Nagaon, Sonitpur, and many other districts of Assam.
It is true that communal tensions have gripped Mathura lately in the light of devotees’ proposed march towards the Sri Krishna Janmabhoomi, which was later called off due to denial of Police permission (here, here, and here). However, the above-mentioned evidence proves that the viral video has nothing to do with Mathura and it dates back to 2019.
To sum it up, an old video of anti-CAB protests in Assam is passed off as a rally of Lord Krishna devotees in Mathura.