Old Video From 2020 Shared As Recent Gathering Of Hindu Devotees At A Shrine In Balochistan

A video showing people gathered in a religious gathering in front of an idol of a Hindu god is going viral across social media. Netizens have circulated the video claiming that it shows recent celebrations centred around the Hindu festival Navaratri in Balochistan, Pakistan.

Claim:

The video shows Hindu devotees gathered around an idol while a man distributes offerings to them. The video was circulated by Kreately; a social media handle that has routinely circulated misinformation.

The post published on September 26, 2022, is captioned, "Salute to these Hindus of #baluchistan #Navaratri #Hindu."

Twitter user, Fazila Baloch, tweeted the video with the claim, "Happy #Navratri to our Hindu brothers and sister's in India and across the globe. Our Hindu community celebrating. Navratri in Balochistan."

The video is viral on Facebook with similar terms.

Fact Check:

The Logical Indian fact-check team verified the viral claim and found it to be misleading. The viral video is from 2020.

We used InVid's Keyframe Analysis tool to isolate the keyframes of the viral video. We then conducted a reverse image search on the keyframes and came across this tweet published by Twitter user @DrRekha99 on October 23, 2020. The caption of the Twitter post read, "Navratri'20 Puja at Hinglaj."

Hinglaj is a Hindu pilgrimage place located along the banks of the Hingol river in Hinglaj, which is located in Balochistan, Pakistan. As per this DNA India article, the Hindu temple is one of the 51 Shakti Peeths, a revered site for worshipping the Hindu Goddess Sati.

We then conducted a keyword search with the keywords 'Navratri in Balochistan' on Facebook and Twitter. On Facebook, we came across a video titled, 'How Hindus are Celebrating Navratri in the Mountains of Balochistan', published by the Wide Side on November 26, 2020. From the 4.40 mark in the video, the scenes from the viral video and the Facebook video have several similarities, which include the same idol in the background. At the 4.49 mark in the video uploaded by The Wide Side, the same man who is seen passing around the offerings in a thali is seen amidst the devotees.

This leads us to affirm that the footage in the viral video and the visuals in the video uploaded by The Wide Side are from the same incident.

In our Fact Check, we also came across this tweet by the verified Twitter account of Dr. Shakeel Ahmad, a former Lok Sabha member and General Secretary of the Indian National Congress.

He captioned the tweet, ''Navratri 2020 worship in Hinglaj, Pakistan,' published on October 24, 2020.

Conclusion:

In our Fact Check, we found that the viral video in question has been circulating across social media since October 2020. The video dates back to at least two years; however, we couldn't trace it back to its origin. Thus, we can ascertain that the viral video is circulated without the entire context.

If you have any news that you believe needs to be fact-checked, please email us at factcheck@thelogicalindian.com or WhatsApp at 6364000343.

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