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Claim:
A viral video (here, here & here) on social media allegedly shows ₹500 notes that were demonetized in India in 2016 found in large numbers on Pakistani roads. In this video, two children can be seen holding bundles of ₹500 notes. This video is being shared claiming that the old ₹500 notes, which have become useless after the Modi government demonetized these notes, are now seen on Pakistani roads. We fact-check this claim through this article.
An archived version of this post can be found here.
Investigation:
A reverse image search using a few keyframes from the viral video revealed that it was first uploaded (archived) on December 27, 2024 on an Indian Instagram page named ‘akhimishra511’. However, no details were given about the video, due to which some social media posts claimed that the incident occurred in Pakistan and Uttarakhand.
However, after the video went viral, Uttar Pradesh content creator Brijesh Mishra, who recorded the incident, revealed more details about the incident through his social media (here, here, here & here).
According to him, a few days ago, two child sanitation workers were spotted by him at Aashiyana Junction in Lucknow, carrying bundles of old ₹500 notes while riding a rickshaw. He made a video of them and posted it on his nephew’s Instagram account and his own account. However, as mentioned in the viral posts, this video is not from Pakistan or Uttarakhand but from Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh. According to Brijesh Mishra, the duo’s parents told him that they had migrated to UP from Assam.
Brijesh Mishra met these children again after the initial video went viral, which you can see here, here & here. They told him that they found those notes in a garbage dump at Aashiyana Junction, and another boy stole the notes from them. Additionally, we contacted Brijesh Mishra to learn more about this incident. This article will be updated once he responds.
To sum up, video from Lucknow is being shared with false claims of demonetized Indian ₹500 notes found on Pakistani roads.
Conclusion: This video is from Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. A person named Brijesh Mishra from Uttar Pradesh spotted the old ₹500 notes with two child sanitation workers at Aashiyana Junction in Lucknow and made a video. Hence, the claim made in the post is false.
(The fact-check article was originally published by Factly and has been republished by Lighthouse Journalism as a part of Shakti Collective.)
