Video claiming cemetery fires in India is of different incidents
A video has been circulating on Facebook with the claim that cemeteries in India are being set on fire one after another, causing them to be damaged and destroyed. However, fact-checking has found that the scenes are not from any cemetery in India. One scene in the video is from an incident of a fire at the Al-Saleheen Cemetery in Aleppo, Syria, while another scene shows the eviction of a slum in Mumbai.
The video was posted on Facebook by a page called “New Saiful.” Three pieces of footage can be seen playing simultaneously on the screen. The footage at the top shows a cemetery on fire. In the footage at the bottom left, some women and teenage girls can be seen crying during an eviction operation. On the right, a man is seen and he can be heard saying, “India is setting fire to cemeteries one after another; they are destroying our cemeteries, demolishing them, and burning them down.”
As of the publication of this report, the video had been viewed more than 66,000 times. The post had received more than 3,800 reactions and had been shared more than 4,500 times.
Keyframes were taken from two pieces of footage in the video and subjected to reverse image searches. This led to a report by the Syrian media outlet Syria TV. The footage in this video report, published on June 14, was found to be visually similar to the first footage. The description of the video in the published post said, “A sudden fire broke out at Al-Saleheen Cemetery in Aleppo; the cause is still unknown.” The same video was also published on the channel’s YouTube channel. The footage in the video is from Aleppo, Syria, not India.
The words “Bandra East Garib Nagar” can be seen overlaid in the second footage. A keyword search was conducted using these words. The search led to a video report by F3 News, a Mumbai-based Facebook page. The description of the report, published on May 23, read, “Viral video of the Bandra Garib Nagar eviction drive.” The scenes in this video completely match those in the second footage of the circulated video. The only difference is that the circulated post shows the footage at an increased speed.
A relevant search found multiple reports (1, 2, 3) on the demolition of the Garib Nagar slum in Bandra. An India Today report said that on May 19, homes in the Garib Nagar slum on the eastern side of Mumbai’s Bandra station were demolished. A four-day eviction drive was carried out with the aim of reclaiming approximately 5,200 to 5,300 square meters of land. More than 400 illegal structures, including homes and shops located on railway land, were demolished in the operation.
In other words, the scenes in the video circulated with the claim that cemeteries in India were being set on fire are from different incidents.
