Interview with Indian girl about home being demolished filmed before sectarian riots in Haryana

This article is more than one year old.
Published on August 23, 2023 at 09:25
Updated on August 23, 2023 at 09:41
4 min read
By Uzair RIZVI, AFP India

A video of a girl holding back tears as she talks to a journalist about her home being demolished has been shared in multiple social media posts in India that misleadingly claim the girl's home was torn down by authorities after religious riots broke out in northern Haryana state at the end of July 2023. While allegedly illegal constructions -- including homes -- were torn down by the Haryana government after the riots, this interview was conducted a month earlier. It does show a girl whose home was demolished, but was clipped from a report about makeshift homes torn down in Delhi on land slated for development.

"Not just my house, but my future has also been demolished," reads a Hindi-language quote included in the caption of a 59-second-long video shared here on X, formerly known as Twitter, on August 10, 2023.

The girl in the video tells the interviewer she wants to become a doctor, but her home has now been demolished and her family doesn't have the money or space to build a new home.

"We slept on the footpath and we had to depend on others for food. I have only had a cup of tea since this morning. They didn't let us take our belongings... all my books got buried," she says.

The video's caption continues in English: "A poor muslim girl from Nuh, haryana talking about his (sic) pain after her house demolished by authorities."

At least six people were killed in sectarian riots that began when mobs hurled stones at a Hindu religious procession and set cars alight in the predominantly Muslim district of Nuh, around 75 kilometres (45 miles) south of New Delhi on July 31.

Arson and vandalism attacks spread the following evening in parts of nearby Gurugram, a satellite city of the capital and a key business centre where Nokia, Samsung and other multinationals have their Indian headquarters.

Screenshot of the false post, captured on August 18, 2023

The same video was also shared alongside similar claims on Facebook here and here, as well as on X here.

Indian news magazine Outlook reported that Haryana state government officials started a demolition drive days after the religious riots, saying the action was against "illegal constructions and encroachment rather than targeting a particular community" (archived link).

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has ordered a halt to the demolition, the August 7 report said.

Rights groups have condemned "bulldozer justice" as an unlawful exercise in collective punishment by India's Hindu nationalist government that has disproportionately targeted the country's Muslim minority.

The video, however, was filmed a month before the unrest and is unrelated to the demolition drive in Nuh.

Delhi demolition

A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the video led to similar footage used in a report about homes being demolished in Delhi that was uploaded to news outlet Lallantop's YouTube channel on June 19 (archived link).

The video description of the 11-minute long report says authorities demolished makeshift homes at "Priyanka Gandhi camp" in the early hours of June 16, and their team spoke to some local people who were affected.

The video used in the misleading posts appears to have been cropped and clipped from the one-minute section beginning at the YouTube video's two-minute, 12-second mark.

Below is a comparison of the video used in the misleading posts (left) and the corresponding frame from the Lallantop video (right):

Comparison of the video used in the misleading posts (left) and the corresponding frame from the Lallantop video (right)

In the video, the journalist mentions the settlement is in Vasant Vihar, an upscale neighbourhood located in southwest Delhi (archived link).

The place where the interview was filmed can be seen using Google Street View here (archived link).

The reporter, Bhanu Kumar Jha of Lallantop News, also told AFP the video was filmed after the demolition drive at Vasant Vihar in Delhi in June.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the interview location as seen in the Lallantop report (left) and the same location as seen on Google Street View (right):

Screenshot comparison of the interview location as seen in the Lallantop report (left) and the same location as seen on Google Street View (right)

Several other Indian news outlets, including Hindustan Times and The Print, reported on the demolitions (archived links here and here).

The reports added the land acquired by clearing the area would be used to build a headquarters for India’s National Disaster Response Force (archived link).

AFP previously debunked another video being shared in a false context in relation to the unrest in Haryana here.

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