Multiple social media users recently shared a video claiming it showed a group of armed, masked men carrying out explosions on the Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) campus, a private deemed university in Vellore, Tamil Nadu. The video depicted these armed men running through the campus premises, setting off explosions, and entering a main building.
However, the PTI Fact Check Desk investigated and found this claim to be false. The video shows a mock drill conducted by the National Security Guard (NSG) on the VIT campus on March 2, 2025, as part of a security and rescue operation exercise in case of a potential threat. Despite this, the video was shared on social media with a misleading claim.
Claim:
An X (formerly Twitter) user shared a video on March 2, showing a group of armed men allegedly carrying out sudden blasts at the university campus of Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT). The video showed the armed masked men running through the campus premises and carrying out blasts before entering a main building.
Here is the link and archive link to the post, along with a screenshot:
Investigation:
The Desk ran the viral video through the InVid tool and extracted multiple keyframes. Upon running one of the keyframes through Google Lens, the Desk found multiple users had shared the same video with similar claims.
Two such posts can be found here and here, with their archived versions available here and here respectively.
The search result also led the Desk to a video posted on a YouTube channel named ‘Shraddha – The Frustrated Human’ on March 3, 2025. The video included visuals from the viral post. Still, it was shared with a caption clarifying that it was a mock drill conducted by the National Security Guard (NSG) at the VIT Vellore campus.
Here is the link and archive link to the post, along with a screenshot:
Below is a combination image highlighting that the content in the viral video matches that of the YouTube video posted on March 3, 2025.
In the next part of the investigation, taking cue from the above generated inputs, the Desk conducted a customized keyword search on Google. It came across a report published by The Hindu on March 2, 2025.
While the report’s feature image matched the keyframes the Desk used for the investigation, the report’s details revealed that the video was of a mock drill carried out by the National Security Guard (NSG) on the spacious campus of VIT Vellore to rehearse security and rescue operations in case of a threat.
Here is the link to the report, along with a screenshot:
Subsequently, the Desk concluded that the video of the anti-terror mock drill at VIT Vellore campus was shared on social media without proper context to mislead people.
Conclusion: Multiple social media users recently shared a video claiming it showed a group of armed men allegedly carrying out sudden blasts at the Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) campus. However, through its investigation, the Desk found that the video was originally of an anti-terror mock drill at the university campus, but was shared on social media without providing the actual context, thereby misleading people.
(The fact-check story was originally published by PTI Fact Check and has been republished by Lighthouse Journalism as a part of Shakti Collective.)
