Video Of Migrant Workers At Delhi's Anand Vihar Shared As Mumbai

A video from March when migrant workers in Delhi thronged to Anand Vihar bus terminal days after a nationwide lockdown was announced, is being shared as Mumbai. The video which shows thousands of migrants queuing up on the roads leading to the bus terminal is viral with caption criticising the Maharashtra government in failure to control the spread of Coronavirus.

The clip is viral on Facebook on Twitter with people sharing it as various locations in Maharashtra including Mumbai, Thane and Panvel.

Senior member and spokesperson of the Aam Aadmi Party, Preeti Sharma Menon also shared the video claiming "it is an unverified video from Thane".

Check the archive of the tweet here

FACT CHECK

BOOM analysed the video and found that it is from Delhi and not Mumbai, from March 28, when the Uttar Pradesh government arranged for buses so migrant workers could return to the state.

The video shows queues leading up to Kaushambi bus depot, near Anand Vihar bus terminal in Delhi where the UP government had started buses from for the migrant workers. The buses were arranged three days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a nation wide lockdown, halting all public transport services and movement of only essential services.

We first found a similar savideo on Twitter from March 28, highlighting the plight of workers in Delhi following the lockdown. The background and the crowd in this video were the same as the viral video with the only difference that the viral video was likely shot at a later time in the evening.

In the above video, the man recording it says the scene is from Anand Vihar in Delhi where migrants workers are queuing up to return home, with no rules of social distancing being followed.

We geolocated Kaushambi bus depot in Anand Vihar bus terminal and were able to find pictures of the same foot over bridge and metro rail bridge as visible in the viral video. In a photo uploaded on Google street view images, we found the same footover bridge and metro rail bridge.

You can view the image here

A search for 'Anand Vihar Migrant workers crowd' led us to several news stories from March 28 and March 29 about huge numbers of workers having gathered at Anand Vihar bus terminal to board a bus to Uttar Pradesh.

"Earlier in the day, the Uttar Pradesh government announced that it has arranged 1,000 buses to ferry migrant labourers stranded in the border districts owing to a countywide lockdown," reported Mint.

A search for photos from Anand Vihar on photo wire agency Getty Images showed a photo from Hindustan Times which matched the same scenes as in the viral video. The photo credited to Biplov Bhuyan was captioned, 'A huge rush of migrant workers who had been marching to their homes, seen at Anand Vihar Bus Terminal on day 4 of the nationwide lockdown imposed by PM Narendra Modi to check the spread of coronavirus, on March 28, 2020 in New Delhi, India.'

Link to the Getty images photo here