An old video showing a massive crowd dancing beneath a flyover in Mumbai during Ganesh Chaturthi festivities, has gone viral with misleading claims that the video shows a Ram Navami procession this year.
However, BOOM found that the video is not recent and was recorded before the Covid-19 pandemic, in Mumbai.
Ram Navami which was celebrated on April 10, 2022 was marred by reports of stone pelting and vandalism in several parts of India this year. According to a report published by The Indian Express violent communal clashes reportedly broke out in some parts in four states - Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and West Bengal. The video has gone viral in this context.
The video shows a sea of people dancing under a flyover. The song 'Ramji ki nikli savari' can be heard playing in the background.
'Just #Mumbai being awesome again ...And pretty much the same scene throughout #Bharat #JaiShreeRam,' one of the captions with the video claims.
Click here to watch the video.
The video has been shared also shared on Facebook and Instagram reel claiming it to be a recent video from Mumbai.
Fact Check
BOOM ran a reverse image search using key-frames of the video and found posts on Facebook and Twitter dated 5, August, 2020.
See the Tweet and Facebook post here.
We also ran a reverse image search on Yandex which lead us to a YouTube video, uploaded on January 2021. The caption of the video reads, "chinchpokhalicha chintamani | full crowded ram ji ki nikli sawari | lalbaughcharaja | Mumbai utsv"
Using the above text we searched for the video on Facebook and found the video was uploaded on April 2, 2020 on the official page of Chinchpoklicha Chintamani, a well known Ganesh Chaturthi pandal in Mumbai.
The caption of the post reads, "रामजीकी निकली सवारी Chinchpokli Sarvjanik Utsav Mandal, Mumbai (Estd. : 1920) Ramajiki Nikali Savari Chinchpoklicha Chintamani Visarjan Sohala Miravanuk"
The same video was also posted on verified Instagram account of Chinchpoklicha Chintamani.
BOOM also found a white piece of cloth is seen on the viral video and found the same Marathi text, 'Chintamani' in the logo of Chinchpoklicha Chintamani.
However, the video is likely to be from before 2020 as the Indian government announced country wide lockdown from March 25, 2020 to curb the spread of the SARS-COV2 virus. Mass gatherings were restricted in the city at the time.
BOOM reached out to Chinchpokli Sarvjanik Utsav Mandal, which has been organising the century old Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations there. An individual who did not want to be identified said the video was from before 2020 but was unable to tell us which year it was recorded in.