Lighthouse Journalism came across a video being widely shared on social media platforms. In the video people were seen beating each other. It was claimed along with the post, that the video shows a BJP leader being beaten in Sirsa, in Haryana. During the investigation we found the viral claim to be false. The fight erupted between two groups of Congress in Sirsa.
Claim:
X user Shakti Kumar Mehta shared the video with the claim.
Check the archive version of the post.
Other users too are sharing the video with the same claim.
Investigation:
We started our investigation by uploading the video in the InVid tool and ran reverse image search on the Keyframes obtained from the video.
During one reverse image search we found a YouTube video on the official handle of Punjab Kesari Haryana.
The video was similar to that of the viral video.
The description mentioned that the video was actually when Congress leaders fought with each other during their election campaign.
We also found the same video uploaded on the Facebook page of Ambala Breaking News.
The caption also named the two groups identified from the fight.
We also found one keyframe, where we could spot a shop, ‘Sharma Mishthan Bhandar’, we searched for the same in Saiman Village, Sirsa and found its location on Google maps.
We called the store, though the owner didn’t know who the people were, he confirmed that the incident happened in front of his store.
We then connected with the staff of ‘Ambala Breaking News’ who had posted the video on their page. Rahul from the team confirmed that the video is from a village in Sirsa. The people seen fighting in the video belong to two groups of Congress, one of Congress leader Kumari Shailaja and another of Congress’ Deepender Hooda.
Conclusion: Video of a fight between two groups of Congress workers in Sirsa is being widely shared as that of a BJP leader being beaten. Viral claim is false.
