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| - Fact Check: Old video of women being rescued from Mumbai bar falsely linked to Uddhav Thackeray's son
We found that the video of a 2021 police raid in a Mumbai bar was falsely shared, targeting the family of the Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.
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India Today Fact Check
The video is from a 2021 police raid of Mumbai’s Deepa bar that has nothing to do with the Thackeray family. However, Bal Thackeray’s grandson Nihar Thackeray was booked under similar charges in 2011.
A video of exiting an underground chamber has gone viral on social media with the shocking claim they were rescued from a bar owned by the son of Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.
The video that’s a little more than two minutes long, showed women, hiding their faces, exiting from an underground chamber. Allegations alongside the video (and in the overlay text) said this footage was from a bar owned by Uddhav Thackeray’s son in Mumbai’s Andheri.
Archived versions of some similar posts can be seen here and here.
The India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) found this claim was false. The incident in question was not related to the Thackerays.
AFWA Probe
We ran a reverse search of some screenshots of the viral video and found a YouTube video uploaded by “Alakh Bharat” on December 16, 2021.
The video contained the viral footage alongside other footage supposedly from the same incident, with the claim that it was from the police raid of a bar in Mumbai.
Using this as a clue, we performed more searches and found a video report by News Tak from December 14, 2021.
When we compared the outfits of the women seen in both videos, it became clear that they were both from the same police raid.
According to an India Today report, the Mumbai Police Social Service branch raided Deepa Bar in Andheri for flouting Covid-19 restrictions, based on a tip from an NGO. Reportedly, police officials were shocked to find 17 women hiding in a secret room during the raid.
The secret room reportedly had air-conditioning and ventilation and was stocked with food, water, and cold drinks. The police filed an FIR against 20 people. There was no mention of any of the Thackerays in this report or other reports on the same incident.
Uddhav Thackeray has two sons — Aditya Thackeray and Tejas Thackeray. Advanced searches on whether either son (or both) owned bars in Mumbai revealed nothing.
AFWA contacted the Mumbai Police Social Service DCP, Raju Bhujbal, who conducted the raid. He said, "The raid went on for over 15 hours, and we also arrested the manager of the bar. But the claims of Uddhav Thackeray’s son(s) owning the bar are not true."
However, a Times of India report from March 10, 2011, mentioned that Bal Thackeray’s grandson Nihar Thackeray, the son of Bindumadhav Thackeray was arrested under the Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act after nine women were rescued from a bar in Mumbai’s Santa Cruz. Nihar reportedly was the owner of that bar.
Therefore, we concluded that the video of a 2021 police raid in a Mumbai bar was falsely shared, targeting the family of the Maharashtra CM.
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