Video shows fight during Indian festival, not demolition of mosque
- Published on May 21, 2026 at 09:03
- 3 min read
- By Ayesha MIRZA, AFP Pakistan
Footage from a festival in India that turned violent has circulated in posts from Pakistan that falsely claim it shows one of six mosques that were demolished in the northern Indian city of Meerut, in Uttar Pradesh state. Though there have been cases of Muslim houses of worship being targeted by Hindu nationalists in India, there are no official reports of a mosque being destroyed in Meerut. A local police officer told AFP the footage shows an incident that took place in a different part of Uttar Pradesh.
"Six Muslim mosques have been demolished in Meerut while Yogi Adityanath was accused of making blasphemous statements after which the situation became tense," says part of an Urdu-language Facebook post shared on May 13, 2026.
Firebrand Hindu monk Yogi Adityanath is the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state.
The post continues: "While 52 Muslim houses have been set on fire, some reports also claimed that Muslims were burned alive."
An accompanying video shows several men clambering onto a building, where they appear to kick another person lying prone on a rooftop. Below them are a crowd waving orange flags.
A person speaking in Hindi can be heard saying, "Killed him, killed the boy".
The same footage was also shared in similar Instagram and X posts.
Critics and rights groups have accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of ramping up rhetoric against Muslim minorities in India, leaving them increasingly anxious about their future (archived link).
Although previous cases of mosques and other Muslim religious structures being demolished have triggered clashes, the circulating video does not depict such an incident (archived here, here and here).
As of May 21, there have been no official reports of widespread mosque demolitions in Meerut.
A reverse image search using keyframes from the falsely shared clip led to a longer version posted on X by Indian media organisation Foundation for Ethical Journalism (FoEJ) Media (archived link).
According to the May 10 post, the video shows a violent clash during the Maharana Pratap Jayanti festival -- which celebrates the birth of a historical Indian ruler -- in the Hapur district of Uttar Pradesh.
"A verbal argument between a Muslim shopkeeper and a Hindu youth escalated into stone pelting from both sides," it said.
Further keyword searches led to an X post from May 10 by the police in Hapur, who said that officers from the Dhaulana police station were investigating a "stone-pelting incident" that took place during the festival in a village called Dehra (archived link).
Hapur superintendent of police Kunawar Gyananjay Singh told AFP on May 14 that the incident took place the previous day, when the procession stopped to lay garlands at a statue and some individuals got into an altercation at a nearby shop.
"Within moments, members of both sides turned violent and began engaging in vandalism. The police have identified and arrested eight individuals in connection with this incident; there is no communal angle involved," Singh said.
Indian broadcaster India TV also aired footage of the brawl, which it said took place near a statue on Dhaulana Gulawati Road in Dehra, almost 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Meerut, the city mentioned in the false claim (archived link).
The falsely shared clip corresponds to imagery available on Mappls (archived link).
Meanwhile, police in Meerut also refuted the claims in a May 13 X post, saying no incident occurred anywhere in Uttar Pradesh (archived link).
AFP has previously debunked misinformation about communal violence in India.
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