An old video is being falsely used to claim that people in the Jamalpur area of Gujarat’s Ahmedabad are flouting lockdown rules. The video shows several people coming out of a mosque and a person is heard saying that Section 144 is in place. The person asks, “Don’t the rules apply to you?”
However, this video dates back to 23 March, a day before the nationwide lockdown was announced, and is not from Ahmedabad but Maharashtra’s Temkar Mohalla Masjid in Dongri.
CLAIM
The video is viral with the claim in English: “Jamaalpur area, Ahmedabad, Gujarat” and in Gujarati: “અમદાવાદ ના જમાલપુર નો દ્રશ્ય આ પરિસ્થિતિમાં 3 May શુ દિવાળી સુધી પણ લોકડાઉન નહીં ખુલે” which loosely translates to “View of Jamalpur from Ahmedabad ... In this situation, the lockdown will not open till 3 May”
BJP National Spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia, too, shared the video on Wednesday, 29 April, taking a dig at the people seen in the video. However, he didn’t say specifically make a claim but didn’t either mention that it was a month old.
The video is being shared on Twitter and Facebook with similar claims.
The Quint received a query on the claim being made in the video on its WhatsApp helpline.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
We divided the video into multiple keyframes and reverse searched them on Google. This led us to a YouTube video uploaded on 25 March with the caption: “*Breaking Alert:-* Masjid closed down at Dongri just now by Local Police ,ACP Avinash Dharmadhikari on the Spot. (sic)”
Following this, we searched on Google using the aforementioned caption as the keywords and found a PTI article dated 24 March with the headline: “Mumbai lockdown: 150 people found offering namaz, FIR registered against masjid trustees for disobeying orders.”
The article mentioned that the incident happened on 23 March and police got the information that 100-150 people were offering namaz inside the masjid despite orders issued under CrPC Section 144 banning assembly of people in view of the ongoing pandemic.
It is pertinent to note that the incident took place one day before the nationwide lockdown was imposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A team headed by ACP Avinash Dharmadhikari reached the spot and asked the people to leave the place, the report added.
Using keywords, “masjid dongri,” we found that Mumbai Mirror had tweeted the same video and mentioned the mosque’s name as Temkar Mohalla masjid in Dongri.
Evidently, a month-old video where people were seen offering namaz in Temkar Mohalla masjid in Dongri in Maharashtra despite Section 144 being imposed in the area, was falsely claimed to be from Ahmedabad.
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