A video of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announcing a lockdown in 15 districts of the state has been revived on social media as a recent one in light of the rising COVID-19 cases.
The announcement dates back to 22 March 2020. The UP government has ruled out a lockdown or curfew in March 2021.
CLAIM
The video was shared by user, ‘Guddu Shah’ on 13 March, stating that a lockdown will be imposed again in UP. It had garnered over 3,800 views at the time of writing this article.
WHAT WE FOUND
With a relevant keyword search we came across the original video uploaded by ‘Kadak’ – a product of News18 India. It also has the logo of ‘Nichod’ - a series by Kadak - as seen in the viral video. The original video is dated 22 March 2020.
The UP CM had announced a lockdown from 23 March to 25 March in 2020, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The lockdown was imposed in 15 districts, Lucknow, Agra, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Ghaziabad, Varanasi, Allahabad, Kanpur, Aligarh, Moradabad, Lakhimpur Kheiri, Bareilly, Azamgarh, Meerut, Gorakhpur, and Saharanpur. Inter-state connectivity had also been shut down.
NO LOCKDOWN: UP HEALTH MINISTER IN MARCH 2021
On 17 March, news agency IANS reported that the state health minister, Jai Prakash Singh, had ruled out the possibility of a lockdown or night curfew in any part of the state.
While cautioning people to continue following COVID guidelines, the health minister also stated that in light of the upcoming Holi festival, testing will be conducted at airports, railway platforms, and bus stations for travellers.
“Directions have been issued to make micro containment zones within an area of 250 metres even if one case was reported from any part,” he added.
Further, Section 144 was imposed in Gautam Buddha Nagar district from 17 March to 30 April in view of the upcoming elections and festive season.
The UP government’s fact-checking team also took to Twitter to state that the video being circulated was old and at present there was no plan for any lockdown in the state.
Evidently, a year old video has been revived to falsely claim that UP CM Adityanath imposed a lockdown in 15 districts.
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