A video is being shared widely on social media with a claim that it shows the funeral procession of the pregnant elephant. It is being shared in the context of the recent death of a pregnant elephant in Kerala on 27 May 2020. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: The funeral procession of the pregnant elephant which died recently in Kerala.
Fact: The animal in the video is not an elephant. It is a bull. Also, the incident in the video took place at a village in Karnataka, not in Kerala. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
On observing the video, it can be seen that the animal in the video is not an elephant. But, let’s try to find more information regarding the video. On the video, the name of TikTok profile – ‘@karabthugumandyahuduga’ can be seen. So, when searched for that profile on TikTok, the same video was found to be uploaded by a user (‘simply_mysore_hudga’) with the description – ‘arvatigekoplu basavapa’ on 6 June 2020.
Here, ‘Basavapa’ means a bull (‘Basavappa/Basavanna’ – a term referring to Nandi/Sacred bull in some areas of South India). So, when searched for the other keyword – ‘aravtigekoplu’, no search results were found. Previously, the term ‘Basavapa’ showed up the results from Karnataka. So, when searched for any village with the name ‘aravtigekoplu’ in Karnataka, it was found that there is a village with the name – ‘Aravattige Koppalu’ in Karnataka. In the video, there is a temple in the background. The same temple (‘Madeshwara Swamy Devalaya’) can be found in the Aravattige Koppalu village. So, the video is related to Karnataka, not Kerala.
Also, many other videos related to the same funeral procession can be found to be uploaded on TikTok as early as 13 May 2020. Those videos can be seen here, here, here, and here. But Kerala’s pregnant elephant died on 27 May. So, the video is not related to that elephant. Also, in the other videos, it can be clearly seen that the animal is a bull.
To sum it up, the video of the funeral procession of a bull in Karnataka is falsely shared as ‘Funeral procession of the pregnant elephant recently killed in Kerala’.
Did you watch our new video?
