India new year celebration footage falsely linked to Hindu festival

Published on February 13, 2025 at 10:44
3 min read
By Sachin BAGHEL, AFP India

Social media users falsely claim an old video of a crowded alleyway was filmed at the Kumbh Mela in India days after at least 30 people died in a stampede at the Hindu festival. Posts sharing the clip criticise Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member and ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for his mismanagement of the event. However, the footage was filmed during New Year festivities in the town of Barsana -- hundreds of kilometres away from the celebrations in Prayagraj.

"BJP doesn't care about people's lives. Is this the arrangement at the Kumbh Mela for the common man?" says the Hindi-language caption of an Instagram post shared February 3, 2025.

The post shares a clip of a crowd in a narrow alleyway with text that says: "Yogi's government claims this is the arrangement at the Kumbh Mela. There is neither any organisation nor any care for people's lives."

Screenshot of the false post taken February 7, 2025

The false claim surfaced after a stampede at the festival on January 29 killed at least 30 people and injured 90 others (archived link). The deaths took the sheen off Adityanath and his government's claims of stellar event management.

The festival is a six-week-long Hindu celebration of prayer and bathing held every 12 years in the northern city of Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh state. In 2025 it ends February 26.

The video circulated alongside similar claims elsewhere on Instagram and X, where it accumulated more than 900,000 views.

However, the video predates the festival and was filmed in another district of Uttar Pradesh.

Barsana, not Prayagraj

Reverse image searches on Google surfaced a video showing the same scene posted January 2, 2025 on Instagram (archived link).

The post's Hindi-language caption says: "(The locals) had told them not to come at this time, but no one listened."

Text overlaid on the video reads: "People trapped in the streets of Barsana. 1 January 2025."

Screenshot comparison of the false video (L) and the clip filmed January 1

Barsana is more than 500 kilometres (316 miles) from Prayagraj.

Further reverse image searches found a video showing the same crowd uploaded to Facebook on January 1 by Shyam Sundar Goswami, a priest from the Barsana temple (archived link).

The clip's caption says: "Look at these people stuck in the crowd in Barsana."

The same elements in the false video appear at the two-minute mark of the clip from the priest.

Comparison of the false video (L) and the video filmed by the priest, with the same elements highlighted by AFP

Goswami told AFP on February 8 that the claims swirling online are false, as the video was filmed near the Barsana temple and is not related to Prayagraj or the Kumbh Mela.

A sign reading "my lovely Barsana" appears at the 41-second mark of a clip of the area provided to AFP by a local shopkeeper.

AFP has debunked other misinformation about the Kumbh Mela.

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