Lighthouse Journalism came across a video being widely shared on social media platforms. In the video police officials were seen charging batons at the crowd. During the investigation we found that the video is old and not related to recently concluded Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj, Uttr Pradesh.
Claim:
Instagram user, Harsh Prayagi shared the reel on his handle.
Other users too are sharing the reel with the same claim.
Investigation:
We started the investigation by running a reverse image search on the keyframes obtained from the video. This led us to one video posted on December 26, 2024.
And another was posted on November 26, 2024.
This indicates that the video is not recent. The Maha Kumbh Mela began on January 13, 2025, while the viral video has been available on the internet since before that date.
The video was posted by Rahul Saha on 15th November and several comments were in Bengali.
We then extracted the keyframes from these videos over which there was no text and checked the video for some visual clues. By zooming into the pictures we noticed that the hoardings were in Bengali. Also, we saw a clock tower in the market. We then ran a keyword search, “Clock towers in Bengal” and compared all the clock towers with the one seen in the image. We came to the conclusion that this clock tower was from Krishnanagar in West Bengal.
We then ran a keyword search on YouTube, “Krishnanargar, Bengal police lathicharge”. This led us to a video on News18 Bangla.
The headline stated: Krishnanagar News : Jagaddhatri PujaāĻ° āĻŦāĻŋāĻ¸āĻ°ā§āĻāĻ¨ āĻāĻŋāĻ°ā§ āĻāĻ¤ā§āĻ¤ā§āĻāĻ¨āĻž ! āĻŦāĻŋāĻļā§āĻā§āĻāĻ˛āĻž āĻ ā§āĻāĻžāĻ¤ā§ āĻĒā§āĻ˛āĻŋāĻļā§āĻ° āĻ˛āĻžāĻ āĻŋāĻāĻžāĻ°ā§āĻ
Translation: Krishnanagar News : Excitement around abandonment of Jagaddhatri Puja! Police baton charge to prevent chaos
The elements in this video were similar to the viral video.
We also found a few news reports about the incident.
The report mentioned: Krishnanagar was thrown into chaos during the immersion of Jagadhatri Puja idols on Sunday evening, leading to a police lathi charge to control the situation. The disturbance took place at the Post Office intersection, a major point of the procession. Thousands of devotees had gathered to witness the immersion, and the crowd quickly grew uncontrollable, prompting police intervention.
Other media organisations too carried the report.
We also checked the visual elements using Google Maps. We also found the location of the video.
Also, we did not find any news reports on lathi-charge in Prayagraj on last day of Maha Kumbh.
Conclusion: The video being shared with the claim that police baton-charged the crowd on the last day of Mahakumbh in Prayagraj is false. The viral video is old and is from Krishnanagar in West Bengal. The chaos happened during the immersion of Jagadhatri Puja idols.
