Unrelated old videos of Yogi Adityanath are being shared as his support to Nupur Sharma - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
June 13, 2022
Couple of videos are being widely shared on social media through different posts (here and here) claiming that Yogi Adityanath had spoken in support of Nupur Sharma. Let us fact-check the claim made in those posts.
Claim: Video showing Yogi Adityanath’s support to Nupur Sharma.
Fact: The first video was clipped from a speech by Yogi Adityanath in 2015. The speech was given by Yogi Adityanath during Vishwa Hindu Maha Sangh at Shri Dudheshwarnath Mandir in Ghaziabad. The second video was clipped from a speech given by Yogi Adityanath in Lok Sabha on 13 August 2014. Yogi Adityanath spoke in the Lok Sabha about the mechanisms to deal with communal violence. He was an MP then. There are no recent news articles of Yogi Adityanath supporting Nupur Sharma. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Video 1:
When reverse image search is done on the screenshots of the video with relevant keywords, a video with similar visuals was found on YouTube. The YouTube video was cut at 26:06 timeframe to make the viral video. The YouTube video was uploaded on 15 May 2015, which means the video is old and is not related to the Nupur Sharma incident where she made certain comments on Prophet Muhammad recently. According to the description of the YouTube video, the speech given by Yogi Adityanath was from Vishwa Hindu Maha Sangh at Shri Dudheshwarnath Mandir in Ghaziabad, held on 10 May 2015.
From the viral video itself, it was clear that the speech was given in Dudheshwarnath Mandir in Ghaziabad. There are no recent videos of Yogi Adityanath going to Dudheshwarnath Mandir in Ghaziabad and supporting Nupur Sharma. In 2015, Yogi Adityanath was not the Chief Minister of UP. He gave his speeches in other summits organised by Hindu organisations. One of which is also in 2015.
Video 2:
When reverse image search is done on the screenshots of the video with relevant keywords, a video with similar visuals was found on YouTube. The viral video was clipped and edited from this YouTube video. The YouTube video was uploaded on 14 August 2014 in the official YouTube channel of BJP. Yogi Adityanath spoke in the Lok Sabha about the mechanisms to deal with communal violence. His speech has also been shared here and here, in 2014. The viral video was created by editing different instances from the same Lok Sabha session held on 13 August 2014.
Several news sites published articles reporting the Lok Sabha discussion held on 13 August 2014, on communal riots. They can be seen here and here. Yogi Adityanath said that the Modi government has been working to reduce communal violence in the country.
To sum it up, old videos of Yogi Adityanath are falsely shared as his support to Nupur Sharma.